Report: Teachers earn less than peers

[flashl]

In 40 states, public school teachers fail to make as much as workers in comparable professions, such as reporters and insurance underwriters, according to a new report by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center (EPE). Nationwide, teachers earn only 88 cents for every dollar paid to workers in equivalent jobs.

These findings were a new feature of the 12th annual Quality Counts report, published by trade newspaper Education Week, which is published by EPE. The report, released Wednesday (Jan. 9), looked at more than 150 indicators to grade states in six categories: teacher policies; standards, assessments and accountability; school funding; K-12 achievement; school transition and alignment policies; and a child’s chances for success in life.

Across these categories, a trio of Northeast states led the pack: Maryland, Massachusetts and New York. At the other end of the scale, the District of Columbia and five states barely avoided failing grades: Idaho, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada and Oregon.

The main focus of this year’s report is states’ teaching policies. States are ranked on factors such as how stringent their license requirements are, whether they provide mentoring programs for new teachers or incentives to teach in hard-to-staff subjects and schools, and working conditions such as class size and the level of school violence.

Stateline - Read Full Text

Nothing new, but affirmation.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. No shock there. :^( And still, there will be people complaining that they are overpaid.

x(

[catnhatnh]

2. How many reporters or insurance underwriters...

have achieved union representation or tenure??? I like teachers and feel their contribution is important but both comparison groups have less guarantee of job stability. Yes-it is hard to become established as a teacher, but both reporters and underwriters are currently much more prone to market forces. And incidentally-how was it decided these jobs were "equivalent"?"

[Snarkturian Clone]

4. no union at my school (charter) NT

[LWolf]

3. My state "barely avoided a failing grade."

I can tell you that a single teacher's income does not go far in this area. I moved here from another state. While cost of living is about the same, I bring home a full 1/3 less than I did before, and pay MORE for health insurance and union dues.

[CRK7376]

5. I left teaching

after spending 13 years in a high school history classroom. I could not raise a family on what NC paid me. I went back in the Army and my salary immediately more than doubled. Now, 8 years later my pay is nearly triple what I was taking home as a teacher. Army also paid for my 3 Master's degrees. I will return to the classroom upon retiring from the Army in a few more years. I miss the classroom....and coaching CC and Track and Field.

My wife chose not to work, but stayed home to raise our kids. If she had worked, very little of her check would have been left after paying for child care, lunches, work attire, gas etc...So we struggled to survive on a teacher/coach/Army Reservist paycheck....but I do miss teaching....

[ulysses]

6. "reporter" and "insurance underwriter" are comparable

in what way again?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. More job satisfaction means you can probably attract compenent people more cheaply.

The relevant question when determining how much to offer teachers, reporters, or any other profession, is not "how much to equivalently-skilled people earn" but "what is the least we need to pay to recruit enough people of sufficient intelligence and abilities".

You can get intelligent people to teach even without paying them very much money, because it's a much more fun job than underwriting insurance.

That said, it's possible that in America it may have gone too far - I know that there are all sorts of concerns that degrees in education are easier to aquire than others, and that many teachers are not sufficiently qualified. If so, the solution is to offer more money so you get more applicants, and to make the selection procedures tougher.

[flashl]

8. Teachers’ contribution to society is immeasurable

IMO. teachers are members of the most important profession in this society, therefore their salaries should reflect their contribution to our collective well-being.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

9. I'm afraid I disagree.

Not about teachers contribution to society, but about their salaries reflecting that (with the slight proviso that the importance of the work they do means that striking is a more powerful bargaining chip for their union when pressing for higher pay).

Their salaries should be determined in the same way as any other salary: "how much do we need to pay to get the job done to the required standard".

The primary responsibility of the people setting teachers' salaries is to the taxpayer, not to the teachers.

[flashl]

10. Businesses everyday uses 'value added' to measure output to achieve desired outcome

From that vantage point, teachers' value added to society needs to be given consideration if 'we' want to remain the world's leader in science and technology.

Teacher's salaries as well as other professions have been artifically held stagnant for too long. The increase of teachers with visas is a clear indicator to me that there is an effort to drive their salaries down.

Each time, a local poll is performed to inquire whether teachers should receive salary increases, there is always overwhelming support. In our instance, the pols are not acting on the desires of our community.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. This highlights a flaw in government by referendum.

I have no doubt that most of the American electorate would also like to see teachers salaries raised, but I also have no doubt that they'd like to see taxes cut.

I'm somewhat sceptical about paying teachers by value added, to be honest. Here in the UK the government has introduced a scheme called "performance related pay" which is meant to do essentially that, and while it sounds like a good idea on paper, what it's actually led to is a great deal of form-filling, and even more focussing on test-passing rather than education. It's also resulted in teachers with problem classes - lots of pupils who don't speak English, lots of poor pupils and the like - getting paid less than ones with easier-to-teach classes.

This may just be a problem with the implementation, but my guess is that it's not. I suspect that it's quite hard to find easily-measurable things that will tell you whether or not a teacher is any good at their job.

[flashl]

12. Agree. The present performance pay structure is not a good measurement.

IMHO, a good use of performance pay would mean rewarding teachers who are increasing skills of poor performers. The practice of rewarding teachers with motivated students defeats the notion of performance pay.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

13. I think PRP is fundamentally flawed.

If you say "we are going to measure these things, and pay you accordingly to how high you score", what you are effectively saying is "your job is to score as high as possible in these ways".

It's possible to create measurable quantities which are somewhat linked to what one wants teachers to be doing, but not closely enough for it to be a good approach.

I can see the sense of paying more senior and better-qualified teachers more than others, and paying differently in different areas or for different classes, but beyond that I think that pay ought to be largely constant, or at a pinch determined by headmasters (although I can see that causing a hell of a lot of staffroom bad-feeling, probably making it a bad idea).

I would be all for paying good teachers more than bad ones if there were a good way to tell them apart. I'm not convinced there is, though.

[Lorax]

14. Education degrees easier????

I'd be curious to hear where you have heard that degrees in education are easier to acquire than others? Did you know that an education degree is essentially a 5 year degree? Not only do teachers have to fulfill the typical requirements of a four year degree, but they spend the fifth year student teaching. That is two whole semesters of what amounts to an unpaid internship, in addition to meeting at the university in the evenings for more classes. That was two semesters of being at my internship school at 7am, running a classroom under the supervision of a mentor until 3pm, staying after school so my mentor could review my plans for the next day, and then being at my university at 5pm for an evening of classes. Thank goodness I had my husband to support me during that time. There is NO way I could have held down a job to support myself at that time. Lots of people did, though. I don't know how they did it.

I did more work to get my supposedly easy education degree at a state university than my husband did to get his degree in history. I have 10 years to get my masters degree if I want to keep my certification. But I'm sure I don't have to worry about that since degrees in education are easier than most. As a teacher, I worker harder, longer, and under worse conditions than my husband does. The sad thing is that my husband already earns more than three times what I can expect to make after 20 years of teaching. And his salary will continue to rise.

But it's not about the money. At least not for me. It's about the working conditions. If teachers were treated with respect by the administration, by parents, and by the general public, there would probably be more people willing to do the job.