Special Reports

9 Investigates: NC teachers head to Houston for higher pay, more 'respect'

By Paige Hansen
By Paige Hansen
At least 55 teachers who taught in North Carolina last school year are now teaching in Texas.  

Houston school leaders made four recruiting trips to the state this past year, more than they made to any other state, according to the Houston Independent School District.  

A North Carolina state report found a significant increase in the teacher turnover rate in the past couple years.  The latest report found more than 13,000 of the 95,000 teachers in the state left last school year.

Channel 9 traveled to Houston, where some of North Carolina's former teachers are happy and working, making more money.

Ricky Ferguson said he's working his dream job, teaching high school science.  Last year, he taught in Union County.  Now he is one of dozens of North Carolina transplants teaching in Texas. 

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"I'm doing the same job I was doing in Carolina, I'm just being appreciated here more in Texas," Ferguson said.  

Channel 9 first met Ferguson in July when Houston school leaders were in Charlotte, trying to recruit new teachers.  Ferguson accepted the job on the spot, excited to make $60,000, which is double his North Carolina salary. 


A few weeks later, Channel 9 was there as Ferguson packed up to drive more than 1,000 miles to Houston.  

"With North Carolina with the salary I was making and the state income tax, I was lucky if I brought home $20K a year and that's with a master’s degree," Ferguson said.  

The cost of living in Houston is comparable to Charlotte's and Texas does not collect income tax, so teachers keep more of their paychecks.

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In North Carolina, Ferguson said he had to live with his parents to save money.  Now that he's in Texas he's living in a luxury apartment building right in the heart of downtown Houston

Andrew Houlihan is in charge of recruitment for Houston schools, but he's a North Carolina native, and a former Raleigh teacher.  The districts' superintendent, Dr. Andrew Grier, used to be the superintendent at Guilford County Schools.

"I understand there are really great teachers and really great graduates of universities that want to become teachers and are really questioning right now if they want to stay in North Carolina or go somewhere else," Houlihan said.



A first-year teacher in Houston makes at least $49,100. In North Carolina, that same teacher would make $33,000 before local county supplements.

"Financially I am still getting my feet under me but I am not stressed," Jamie Kendall said.  Kendall left North Carolina's Nash-Rocky Mount School District for Houston this year.  

She said at 38, she was tired of having to ask her mother for money.

"Money drove me here, but the fact that I'm here and happy here is really, I'm not stressing about bills. That lack of stress I think makes me enjoy what I do even more," Kendall said.  

In fact, Kendall plans to return to North Carolina next year, this time as part of Houston's recruiting team.

"I can tell you this, we're not going to just limit our recruitment to last summer we're going to continue to come to North Carolina and to other states that are in a similar situation," Houlihan said.  

North Carolina lawmakers tried to remedy that situation this summer.  But the average 7 percent pay raise they passed for teachers was criticized because for some veteran teachers, the raise was less than 1 percent.

Ferguson said even though he grew up in North Carolina and his family is here, for financial reasons, he said it can't be his home anymore.

WSOC

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