When you see figures for K-12 teacher pay it's normally an average of all teachers, including those who have master's degrees and PhDs, or specialized skills such as ESL. But what about your garden variety fourth-grade teacher with a BA? They now make less than the average for all workers:
The average base pay for teachers with a BA is $53,000, with a range of $42,000 to $59,000 depending on experience. This doesn't count potential extras, like pay for coaching or for teaching summer school. It's also for a 37-week year.
Note that $53,000 is a national average. Pay ranges from a low of $37,000 in Missouri to a high of $69,000 in California.
In Los Angeles, you have to be in your eighth year before you make $69K.
"The U.S. attracts most of its teachers from the bottom two-thirds of college classes, with nearly half coming from the bottom third." McKinsey report (2010).
Note, some dispute the McKinsey data. Rather, my point, perhaps, teachers are not equally representative of college graduates.
Are you implying that teachers deserve less because some disputed consultant data claims they tend to be from the bottom of their class in school?
Or are you implying that if we started paying teachers a better wage we would see more people from the top of their class enter the profession?
ETA:
To compare, here's a data point I happened to run across today: UPS drivers, on average, make $95,000 a year, and receive benefits worth another %50,000.
%=$
My point, public school teachers probably are, on average, different than your typical college graduate.
This same point can be made about most professions: mechanical engineers, investment bankers, artists etc are ALL different than your average college graduate.
All professions involve tradeoffs, hold different career paths and command different levels of compensation. The data seems to indicate, given that most teaching slots are filled, that a sufficient number of college graduates find the elements of the a teaching job to be appealing.
The data seems to indicate, given that most teaching slots are filled, that a sufficient number of college graduates find the elements of the a teaching job to be appealing.
Humor me, I'm dumb: Explain your reasoning, step by step with justifications for each one as to how you arrived at this conclusion.
"4 percent of all public school teaching positions across the country were vacant."
Given that virtually all teachers are well educated/have a BA or more, one presumes they have professional choice. IF teaching compensation was so unattractive, it seems likely that there would be broad vacant positions.
Stated differently, there are far more unfilled job slots in law enforcement, fire, etc
https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/12_6_2022.asp
https://bja.ojp.gov/doc/recruitment-retention-modern-le-agency.pdf
https://wildfiretoday.com/2022/05/05/forest-service-chief-says-in-some-areas-only-50-of-firefighter-positions-are-filled/
ScentOfViolets let me hear your well supported, with third party data, counter argument.
From your link:
"Forty-Four Percent of Public Schools Operating Without a Full Teaching Staff in October."
"18 percent of public schools had one teaching vacancy and 26 percent had multiple teaching vacancies... The average public school had two vacant teaching positions."
"Fifty-eight percent of public schools with a high-minority student body (greater than 75 percent minority) had at least one teaching vacancy."
What happens when there's a teacher vacancy? Often, the solution is combining classes. Instead of, say, 3 classes of 25 students, there may be 2 classes of 37 students. That's a big difference affecting an entire grade level, and affecting students especially where teachers are needed most.
Your link goes back to 2022, when pandemic effects were still having a noticeable impact. How are things more recently? This is from the beginning of this school year:
"By the Numbers: Teacher vacancies jump by 51%"
"The latest data shows at least 55,000 estimated vacant teaching positions compared to the over 36,000 vacancies reported a year ago."
It seems fewer college graduates are finding the elements of a teaching job to be appealing. In a strong economy, with more appealing alternatives that pay better elsewhere, funding for public education will need to adjust to attract more talent to the teaching profession.
Another reason it’s difficult to attract teachers is the disrespect they get from people like “middleoftheroaddem”.
It is interesting.
Joseph Harbin - your quote is accurate. It still does not change the following: 96% of teaching spots are filled, lots of other professions have more vacancy AND there has been a rise in open spots for both police and fire as well.
iamr4man - disrespect? Or did I just quote publicly available data...
Old data. That was before a 51% surge in vacancies.
Many vacancies in other fields can go unfilled for a long time with hardly a ripple. A class of students without a teacher cannot.
8 percent of teachers left teaching altogether in 2021-2022.
https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/12_13_2023.asp#:~:text=Overall%2C%2084%20percent%20of%20public,profession%20(%E2%80%9Cleavers%E2%80%9D).
I wonder what the turnover rate is in other professions ? This may not be clear to people who have never taught school but teaching is harder than most other similarly compensated professions. That said I think there are many people who just love to teach, and like say musicians or artists, want to do this difficult job even though many of their college peers in say business and finance, make a lot more money. Education is an important and powerful good that we should consider and reward differently than just pure market forces would dictate, don't you think ?
Yep. And along with the the casual disrespect teachers get blamed for any deficiency in the education system and for failing to fix problems often caused by bad parenting.
Graduates with education majors are predominantly women, so yes, they are not typical. That fact also explains why they are paid less. All occupations that are predominantly femail make less $$ than othe occupations, all other things being equal.
It would seem if there is causation here, the most plausible one would be that low pay means that most teachers come from the bottom two-third of college classes. I'd be interested though in what that means? Are we talking GPA?
I'm also skeptical that the skills that make a good elementary teacher are even captured by college stats. It probably does have some correlation for high school.
Kevin said that the graph was for "all workers", not just college graduates.
While im not sure about the accuracy of the data, this sounds like good evidence of the need for higher pay for teachers. Since we know that teachers from the top of their graduating class are not making much more than the average, this link that you are trying to make quite obviously doesnt make sense.
Assuming that because pay is low the workers are of low quality and deserve the low pay is obviously the logical fallacy of assuming the conclusion.
Anecdotally, many years ago when I was starting as a graduate teaching assistant at a large State University, more experienced grad students told me that the education majors were the dumbest majors out there. I was contrarian even then and did not believe them. But they proved to be right. I have not seen anything since that would dissuade me of that, or at least that it is not a major for the academically accomplished. Anecdotal, I know.
That said, though, I suspect that being an effective teacher has less to do with academic success in college than many or even most other majors.
I don't dispute your anecdata. On the other hand, for decades I've wondered what would happen if we doubled the pay for public school teachers, and then waited 5-10 years to see what kinds of students were attracted to major in Education.
And for comparison, here's my anecdata. For 8 years I taught at an undergraduate college that didn't have an Education major, but did have a Business major. It was pretty clear that on average the Business majors were far and away our weakest students. And what was not anecdata, but rather hard cold numbers, was that our Business department teachers were far and away our highest paid faculty. It's an interesting case study in resource distribution.
Interesting, although we can both name a dozen reasons why that will never happen. I suspect that education would be a much more popular major and draw in more academically talented students. But I am not sure it would result in significantly better teachers; the best teachers I saw were often not necessarily academically excellent but instead had a certain type of personality or way of thinking or a passion that just made them better at that job.
And that is interesting about the Business major thing. Hope you were not teaching where my son the business major now goes to college...
"bottom two-thirds of college classes"
This is an interesting way to describe a large majority of college grads. And what does "most" mean in that report? Two thirds?
"It's also for a 37-week year" could only be written by someone who doesn't know many teachers. In my work days, if I took my full allotment of vacation time (~5 weeks), my wife, a teacher, would typically work more days during the year than I did.
Also, though I don't know the percentages, and the requirements likely vary by state, a lot of teachers hold advanced degrees. A far higher percentage than for many other jobs.
"...if I took my full allotment of vacation time (~5 weeks) ..." could only be written by someone who doesn't know many workers.
Most workers don't have 30 years tenure with the same company, which earned me more vacation time. Most workers in the private sector do accrue more vacation as they reach milestones in years of service. Teachers, not so much. There is very little flexibility for teachers in taking time off. Need to see a doctor? Good luck getting a late-afternoon appt. Your kid is in the Xmas play at school? Maybe a friend will video it for you. Want to take a 3-day weekend? Unless it's a holiday, you gotta work. Etc.
Teachers get *lots* of time off. Two months in the summer, 2-3 full weeks over Christmas, spring break, etc.
And that's why teachers get very few vacation days. They already get lots of time off - they just don't get to choose when to take it.
There is very little about a teacher's schedule that allows any autonomy at all, in marked contrast to virtually every other profession.
A lot of "time off" is spent doing lesson plans, especially in the first few years of teaching. There are also a lot of extra hours during the year spent on grading and parent communication.
I remember my dad, a college instructor, complaining that people thought his only work time was his classroom time, as if grading, lesson plans, creating the syllabus, writing tests, talking to students, and selecting course readings was done by elves.
Just my volunteer gigs with kids are a clue as to how much extra work there is with teaching - so much time spent on planning and prep!
Excellent points. I spent my career in higher education, and there were innumerable nights I found myself grading a stack of papers at midnight, and thinking about the people who asked me what it was like to work only 9 hours a week. And on that score, I had it much easier than K-12 teachers, who have my utmost and ever-lasting respect.
The teacher shortage is fake!!! Fire all the teachers and replace them with retired military officers!!!
Or in Texas, clergy. 😉 "The legislation, Senate Bill 763, passed the Texas Legislature in May 2023 and allows districts to hire chaplains to perform the duties of school counselors even if they don't have the training or credentials for the job."
At school board meetings, parents will resent having to take two (or three, partime) jobs to pay more in taxes to support teachers who make more than they do.
I be guess'n private schooling would be cheaper than taxes.
Parents wont have to work 3 jobs in order to pay teachers a bit better. This made up complaint is a stupid one.
No, actual comment made a few years back at school board meeting in PA and shown on the local news.
IOW, this worthy did think the nature of things was a natural pecking, they were above teachers in that order, and therefore teachers should never be allowed to make more than them.
Is that about right?
I taught high school math for two years. Yes, just two. Then I went to engineering school, and three years later got a job that doubled my pay.
High school teaching was HARD. I was exhausted at the end of nearly every day. I became convinced that if I kept at it then I would be burned out within five years. And I saw a couple teachers in my department who clearly were burned out, and I didn't want to end up like them.
I have a lot of respect for teachers. Engineering is comparatively easy - at least, I'm not worried about burnout anymore.
I'm back in an office full time after spending years in an elementary school, and it is a total culture shock. In my office there is no screaming, or things getting smashed randomly throughout the day. I can go use the bathroom just about any time I want, AND all the sinks and toilets work. No fights, no barfing on the floor, no one threatening to come in and beat someone up (that last one is parents, not kids). No chasing down anyone running away. No county social workers or police showing up. No holes in the walls or floors. I haven't had to duck to avoid a flying iPad in months!
Teaching is tough under any circumstances, and the working conditions in public schools are often not good (or downright terrible).
A paperback of Charles Russell's sketches came down from my father in law's estate. I wish Kevin's blog allowed posting two of how to solve the unruly student problem.
Your version of Fermat's Last Theorem?
😉
Another factor coming into play when administrators hire teachers is that teachers expect to own houses. In some areas, housing prices make even states where teachers are relatively well paid make that unlikely. How can a district with high housing prices but low wages hope to attract talented professional teacher (mainly women) when they are competing against employers who can offer better pay and a shot at owning a home?