How Does Teacher Pay Compare?

This is from a report on teacher compensation issues presented by the Economic Policy Institute, August 2004, written by Sylvia Allegretto, Sean Corcoran and Lawrence Mishel. EPI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that seeks to broaden the public debate about strategies to achieve a prosperous and fair economy.

This particular summary provides some perspective on teacher pay issues.

How Does Teacher Pay Compare?

Methodological Challenges and Answers

The major findings of our review and analysis include the following:

• Recent research shows that teacher quality is key to student and school success.

• A continuing issue is whether teacher pay is sufficient to attract and retain quality teachers: trends in relative teacher pay seem to coincide with trends in teacher quality over the long run.

• Several types of analyses show that teachers earn significantly less than comparable workers, and this wage disadvantage has grown considerably over the last 10 years.

• An analysis of weekly wage trends shows that teachers' wages have fallen behind those of other workers since 1996, with teachers' inflation-adjusted weekly wages rising just 0.8%, far less than the 12% weekly wage growth of other college graduates and of all workers.

• A comparison of teachers' weekly wages to those of other workers with similar education and experience shows that, since 1993, female teacher wages have fallen behind 13% and male teacher wages 12.5% (11.5% among all teachers). Since 1979 teacher wages relative to those of other similar workers have dropped 18.5% among women, 9.3% among men, and 13.1% among both combined.

• A comparison of teachers' wages to those of workers with comparable skill requirements, including accountants, reporters, registered nurses, computer programmers, clergy, personnel officers, and vocational counselors and inspectors, shows that teachers earned $116 less per week in 2002, a wage disadvantage of 12.2%. Because teachers worked more hours per week, the hourly wage disadvantage was an even larger 14.1%.

• Teachers' weekly wages have grown far more slowly than those for these comparable occupations; teacher wages have deteriorated about 14.8% since 1993 and by 12.0% since 1983 relative to comparable occupations.

• Although teachers have somewhat better health and pension benefits than do other professionals, these are offset partly by lower payroll taxes paid by employers (since some teachers are not in the Social Security system). Teachers have less premium pay (overtime and shift pay, for example), less paid leave, and fewer wage bonuses than do other professionals. Teacher benefits have not improved relative to other professionals since 1994 (the earliest data we have on benefits), so the growth in the teacher wage disadvantage has not been offset by improved benefits.

• The extent to which teachers enjoy greater benefits depends on the particular wage measure employed to study teacher relative pay. Based on a commonly used wage measure that is similar to the W-2 wages reported to the IRS (and used in our analyses), teachers in 2002 received 19.3% of their total compensation in benefits, slightly more than the 17.9% benefit share of compensation of professionals. These better benefits somewhat offset the teacher wage disadvantage but only to a modest extent. For instance, in terms of the roughly 14% hourly wage disadvantage for teachers we found relative to other workers of similar education and experience, an adjustment for benefits would yield a total compensation disadvantage for teachers of 12.5%, 1.5 percentage points less.

• The hourly wage data in the NCS, the relatively new Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, has been used in several recent analyses that found teacher wages to be on par with those of other professionals. Our examination of these data show that the vast differences in the way work time is measured in the NCS for teachers (K-12, as well as university professors, airline pilots, and others) and workers following a more traditional year-round schedule preclude an accurate comparison of teacher hourly wages relative to those of other professionals. These inconsistencies in work hour measurement (hours per week, weeks per year) in the NCS are so large as to obscure a 23.4% greater hourly wage advantage for professionals relative to K-12 teachers.

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Teacher raises for 2006-2007

Springfield 2.5% (proposed)
Nixa 4.6%
Ozark 3.4%
Branson 3.6%
Republic 5%

If these numbers hold, Nixa passes Springfield in base starting salary.

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Board Study Session 8/1/06

Energy Audit - A rep from energy management company ESCO spoke to the board about a proposed $70,000 energy audit that would initially focus on energy efficient lighting but would also provide general information about all other energy systems (roofing, cooling, heating, windows, etc.).

Future Issues - the levy rate will be set by the end of August after updates from the County Assessor's office are complete. Indications point to a "roll-out" of approximately half of last year's ill-conceived levy rollback.