Salaries for technology professionals remained nearly flat for a second straight year, according to the 2010-11 Annual Salary Survey from Dice 
, the leading career site for technology and engineering professionals. On average, technology professionals received a .7 percent salary increase to $79,384 from $78,845 in 2009. This is roughly the same size increase as the previous year.
In Texas, average salary increases were stronger than the national average with the exception of Austin. The Dallas-Fort Worth metro area average salary jumped 4 percent to $81,579 from $78,438 in 2009. The Houston metro area experienced a 1.4 percent increase, while Austin saw a decrease in average salary of 2.6 percent.
Despite the nominal increase in wages, there are promising signs of a recovery. Nearly half of the workers surveyed (49 percent) received a salary increase in 2010 compared to just 36 percent the previous year. However, recovery may be slow. Wages for workers entering the technology field fell for the second straight year. Average salaries of technology professionals with less than two year’s experience fell 6 percent below their peak average wage in 2008.
As for technology skills, those most frequently requested in job postings at Dice.com are knowledge of Oracle, J2EE/Java, C, C++, and C#. Demand for these top skills is up from 47 to 57 percent.
The Houston Federation of Teachers (HFT) has decided to challenge Houston ISD’s new teacher evaluations . The battle started with a late-November hearing in which the union and district presented evidence to an attorney.
HFT President Gayle Fallon acknowledges the union is likely to lose the battle but vows to see the appeal through to the Texas commissioner of education. A commissioner’s ruling could set a precedent for all Texas districts looking to strengthen their teacher evaluations. The stakes are high: Houston teachers can be fired based on poor evaluations.
Fallon has been an outspoken critic of the district’s process in putting the system together and the use of value-added data to rate teacher performance. She is especially critical of the level of teacher input in the system’s development, arguing that the district violated state law by ignoring teachers’ concerns. “They talk about the thousands of teachers and parents they interviewed and that participated,” Fallon said. “That’s all well and good, but you can participate by sitting there and having no one listen to you.”
—“Battle looms over new HISD teacher reviews,” by Ericka Mellon, Houston Chronicle, Nov. 25, 2011.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently launched an enhanced Employment Authorization Document and a redesigned Certificate of Citizenship (Form N-560) with new features to strengthen security and deter fraud.
USCIS worked with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Forensic Document Laboratory to incorporate technology and tactile features to deter counterfeiting, obstruct tampering, and enable quick and accurate authentication. USCIS began issuing the redesigned documents on Oct. 30 and anticipates that more than one million people will receive the new documents in the next year.
In 2010, USCIS issued a new Permanent Resident Card to add technology improvements. The agency says it will make an ongoing effort to produce more secure documentation.
