Honolulu Star-Advertiser
By Mary Vorsino
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Dec 21, 2011
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Two-thirds of Hawaii public school teachers who responded to a recent union poll said they hold one or more outside jobs, and 41 percent of those earning supplemental incomes said they started working another job in the last one to three years.
The teachers union said the survey, which was not scientific, helps illustrate the significant toll that furlough days, pay cuts and increased medical costs have had on teachers since 2009.
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"They (teachers) have families, too," said Wil Okabe, president of the Hawaii State Teachers Association. "They have bills."
He added that he was "very surprised" at the high percentage of teachers who said they had another job.
Okabe said he planned to share the results of the survey with policymakers, as the teachers union continues its bid to fight imposed pay cuts and higher medical costs at the Hawaii Labor Relations Board. More teachers working outside the classroom, Okabe said, "definitely has an impact on the teaching profession ... (and on) students as well."
The HSTA poll, conducted online this month, had 787 respondents. Some teachers reported holding multiple jobs: 27 percent of those who said they worked outside the classroom had two jobs to earn supplemental income, while 3 percent had three jobs.
Also, many teachers appear to have sought extra income after recent reductions in salaries. About 41 percent said they have held a job outside teaching for three years or less, while 20 percent said they've had a second job for a decade or more.
Among Hawaii teachers with outside jobs, 44 percent spent 10 hours or less a week earning extra income, while 30 percent reported spending 11 to 15 hours a week on jobs elsewhere and 18 percent worked 16 to 20 hours a week outside the classroom.
Several public school teachers said the survey results reflect what they see in schools.
Jessica Canyon, a fifth-grade teacher at Fern Elementary, said several of her teacher friends wait tables for extra money. Until recently Canyon worked about 12 to 18 hours a week as a server.
She said she had to quit because the eatery where she worked told her she had to put in more hours or leave. But Canyon is looking for a new second job.
Canyon said she can "make ends meet" with her teaching salary.
"I could live with it," she said, "but I want to live comfortably."
She said she used her extra income for things like eating out.
John Nippolt, who heads the art department at Kalani High School, said he has for years supplemented his income with commissions for his wood carvings.
"It's something I have to do. We need the money," he said, adding that some of his colleagues work at the airport or at eateries for extra income.
"It's unfortunate to put teachers in that position," he said.
EDUCATION ADVOCATES say the survey, though far from comprehensive, provides a snapshot into some of the struggles teachers are facing. The poll comes six months after the state imposed a "last, best and final" contract offer on Hawaii's 12,500 teachers, unilaterally implementing pay cuts, furloughs and increases in health care costs.
The state doesn't have a good grasp on the percentage of workers overall who hold second jobs, though it's believed to be higher than other states given Hawaii's high cost of living. The state Department of Education also doesn't track whether teachers work elsewhere.
DOE spokeswoman Sandra Goya did say there is no policy prohibiting public school teachers from working outside the classroom. The DOE had no comment on the HSTA poll.
That's up slightly from 2003-04, federal figures show.
State-by-state numbers are not collected, but some states have followed the trend for years. In Texas, for example, about 41 percent of teachers work outside the classroom, up from 22 percent in 1980, the Associated Press reports. A 2007 survey of North Carolina teachers, meanwhile, found 72 percent moonlight, including working in the summer.
Salaries for Hawaii public school teachers vary widely, depending on education, certifications, years of service and whether a teacher is serving in a shortage area. A starting public school teacher with a bachelor's degree earns a base salary of about $33,000, while someone with a doctoral degree earns a base salary of about $57,200, the DOE reports.
Lois Yamauchi, president of the Parents for Public Schools-Hawaii chapter and a professor in the University of Hawaii at Manoa's College of Education, said she knows several teachers who have to work part time to cover basic household expenses.
"It's not to be extravagant; it's just to get along," she said.
Yamauchi said the HSTA survey should prompt further "research and consideration" into the issue of teachers working second jobs. She added that teachers having to work outside jobs should be a concern for schools, especially as the state looks to boost student achievement.
"It's unfortunate for both them (teachers) and the kids," she said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 11, 2011
Teachers, facing low salaries, opt to moonlight
MIAMI (AP) — By day, Wade Brosz teaches American history at an A-rated Florida middle school. By night, he is a personal trainer at 24 Hour Fitness.
Brosz took the three-night a week job at the gym after his teaching salary was frozen, summer school was reduced drastically, and the state bonus for board certified teachers was cut. He figures that he and his wife, also a teacher, are making about $20,000 less teaching than expected to, combined.
"The second job was to get back what was lost through cuts," said Brosz, a nationally board certified teacher. "It was tougher and tougher to make ends meet. I started personal training because it's flexible hours."
Second jobs are not a new phenomenon for teachers, who have historically been paid less than other professionals. In 1981, about 11 percent of teachers were moonlighting; the number has risen to about one in five today. They are bartenders, waitresses, tutors, school bus drivers and even lawnmowers.
Now, with the severe cuts many school districts have made, teachers like Brosz, who hadn't considered juggling a second job before, are searching the want ads. The number of public school teachers who reported holding a second job outside school increased slightly from 2003-04 to 2007-08. While there is no national data for more recent years, reports from individual states and districts indicate the number may have climbed further since the start of the recession.
In Texas, for example, the percentage of teachers who moonlight has increased from 22 percent in 1980 to 41 percent in 2010.
"It's the economy, primarily," said Sam Sullivan, a professor at Sam Houston State University, which conducts the survey.
Rita Haecker, president of the Texas State Teachers Association, said cuts in education have forced many teachers to take furlough days. It's an extra strain because, unlike in the past, many teachers are now the primary breadwinner, either because they are a single parent or their spouse is unemployed, Haecker said.
"It affects their morale in the classroom," she said. "The last thing we want is our teachers worried about how they are going to pay their bills."
The average salary for a public school teacher nationwide in the 2009-10 school year was $55,350, a figure that has remained relatively flat, after being adjusted for inflation, over the last two decades. Starting teacher salaries can be significantly lower; compared to college graduates in other professions, they earn more than $10,000 less when beginning their careers.
"I think people have felt the need to supplement their teaching salaries in order to have a middle class lifestyle," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, which published a study this year concluding the average weekly pay of teachers in 2010 was about 12 percent below that of workers with similar education and experience.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which collects data on student performance across the globe, advised the United States earlier this year to work at elevating the teaching profession in order to improve student performance. The recommendations included measures like raising the bar for who is selected to become a teacher, providing better training and better pay. In many nations where students outperform the U.S. in reading, math and science, including Japan and South Korea, teachers earn more than they do in the United States.
"International comparisons show that in the countries with the highest performance, teachers are typically paid better relative to others, education credentials are valued more, and a higher share of educational spending is devoted to instructional services than is the case in the United States," the OECD report concluded.
While moonlighting isn't unique to teachers, they do tend to have second or third jobs at a higher rate than other professionals. One researcher estimates their moonlighting rates may be four times higher than those of other full-time, college educated salaried workers.
Eleanor Blair Hilty, an education professor at Western Carolina University, said most teachers make around $5,000 through outside work. Yet when asked if they would quit if given a raise in the equivalent amount, most said no. Her conclusion: teachers are getting something more from their second job other than an extra paycheck.
"A lot of it has to do with what I think is wrong with the teaching profession," Hilty said, noting that teachers have little autonomy and control over what and how they teach. "They found their moonlighting jobs to be satisfying."
Policies on moonlighting vary by district; some have no written guidelines, while others merely advise teachers to ensure any outside work doesn't interfere with their duties at school.
In North Carolina, a survey conducted in 2007 found 72 percent of teachers moonlight, whether it's an after-school job or summer employment.
"There's a culture of silence," Hilty said. "Everybody knows that moonlighting goes on and they know it's part of what teachers do but nobody likes to talk about it very much."
Michelle Hartman, a language arts and science teacher at a Plantation, Fla., elementary school, is balancing two other jobs, one as an organist with the local Presbyterian church, playing at church services, weddings and funerals, and another doing janitorial work twice a week at her father's accounting firm.
The single mother has a master's degree in educational leadership and has been a teacher 15 years. But she says she cannot afford to leave any of her extra jobs, which she said brings in about $6,000 year, in addition to her $46,000 teaching salary.
"I'm tired some days," Hartman said. "But no matter what, it doesn't matter because I know I need to be there for the students."
Yet working an extra job inevitably does take a toll. On top of their work in the classroom, teachers have to grade papers and plan lessons — work they often do at home. One study on teachers who moonlight in Texas cited the case of a teacher who ended up grading papers at the restaurant where she worked. The same study found that all the teachers interviewed reported that moonlighting had a negative effect on their health. In the Texas survey, a majority said moonlighting was detrimental to their work in the classroom.
"Yes, they go 100 percent, but they're still tired," said Dave Henderson, a retired professor who worked on the study for many years.
Albert Ochoa, a middle school art and publications teacher in Austin, Texas, works at least five hours a night at UPS as a shipper, a job he's had since graduating from college in 1977. Even though he is now toward the higher end of the teacher salary schedule, he said he cannot afford to quit either job.
He said he'd have to earn another $2,000 a month in order to support his wife, who is on medical disability, and son, and not work a second job. "I've had opportunities to go work full time at UPS and do other things," Ochoa said. "But I enjoy what I do. I like teaching."
