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Why Is It important To Talk About Education Salaries?

Here are a few points to help you engage the public and your colleagues about the importance of competitive salaries.

Teaching may be a calling, but it shouldn't be a sacrifice.

• Teachers make, on average, about $20,000 a year less than other professionals with comparable education.

• The salary gap for new teachers starts out high - about $8,000 difference between beginning teachers and other 22- to 28-year-olds with bachelors' degree. And it grows bigger over time - about $32,000 between teachers and other 44- to 50-year-olds with a Master's degree. (Quality Counts, Education Week, January 2000, www.edweek.org)
• We need to have compensation for a teacher that attracts and retains the kind of people students need and parents want.

Why should people believe the laws of supply and demand end at the school house door?

• Critics of public education often talk about "injecting market forces" to describe voucher programs or "adopting efficient business practices" on things like purchasing. And yet, these same people deny a relationship between salary and quality.

Compensation is a teacher quality issue.

• We're willing to participate in a wide array of issues that affect teacher quality -- recruitment, preparation, continuing education, etc. But unless we address salaries for teachers and other education employees, we're kidding ourselves that we're serious about quality.
• Just so you know, raising teacher salaries has fairly strong public support -- just not from the media and politicians. So who should you trust -- parents who say we need to raise salaries to get the kind of students parents want and students need or the media and politicians?

Additional Talking Points on Teacher Salaries

Parents and the general public acknowledge the need to raise teacher salaries to attract and retain the kind of teachers parents want and students need. Enhancing teacher quality and reducing class size are highly effective strategies for improving student achievement -- according to research and common sense. Parents and teachers support raising -- not lowering -- standards for teachers, together with providing higher salaries.

Three related articles in the Spring 2003 edition of Education Next argue that teachers are not underpaid - and, in fact, may be overpaid -- compared to other professions that require comparable preparation. The articles are "Low Pay, Low Quality" by Peter Temin, "Comparable Worth" by Richard Vedder, and "Fringe Benefits" by Michael Podgursky.

The essence of Podgursky's argument is that teachers are overpaid since they only work -- according to his calculations -- 30 hours a week, 190 days a year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, teachers work an average of 44 hours a week. NEA data shows teachers report working an average of 49 hours a week.

Teachers start out behind -- about $8,000 below other college graduates -- and the gap grows larger over time -- about $32,000 compared to others with a master's degree and 20 years experience ("Quality Counts," Education Week, January 2000).

The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development found that teachers have, by far, more contact hours with students than teachers in most other nations and earn less -- relative to average salaries in other countries.

Education Next is published by the Hoover Institute, with other partners -- the Fordham Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, and the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University. All four are active supporters of vouchers, private management of education, charter schools, merit pay, alternative licensure, and eliminating tenure.

The political bias of the Hoover Institute, et al., is revealed by statements such as Richard Vedder's, "The union's persistent quest to raise teacher salaries looks more like a ploy to redistribute income from the general taxpayer to teachers."