New National Study: The EPI report

New National Study Shows Teacher Pay Falling Further Behind

The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, today released "The Teaching Penalty: Teacher Pay Losing Ground," which highlights the growing gap in salary growth between teachers and other professions.

On behalf of the American Federation of Teachers, Texas AFT's national affiliate, Executive Vice President Antonia Cortese said this study "is a new addition to the long list of teacher compensation reports reaching the same conclusion: Teachers continue to be vastly underpaid compared with similar workers. This makes recruitment and retention of the best and brightest increasingly difficult, even as the nation recognizes the growing need for high-quality teaching."

As the EPI report's authors put it, "For all the attempts to improve education in recent years, one tactic apparently has not been tried: Raising wages to draw top talent to the vocation of teaching. In fact, according to the EPI study, relative pay for public school teachers has been falling rather dramatically, even when benefits and time off are taken into consideration. The authors note: "In 2006, public school teachers earned 15.1% less than other employees with comparable education credentials and experience--a substantial jump since 1996, when the disadvantage was only 4.3%. Teacher pay has lost ground any way you slice it, they say, whether by education, by gender, or by age.

The EPI report points out that most “merit pay” schemes are destined to fail because they don’t address the issue of a competitive base salary for all teachers. The point couldn't be simpler; salary growth for teachers must be on par with the salary growth in other professions. Unless merit-pay plans also are part of a comprehensive plan to develop and support high-quality teaching, based on agreements negotiated with and approved by the employees affected, they will produce the same dismal results that they have in the past.
Cortese added: "Teachers are the most important in-school influence on student achievement. We can't discuss recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers until we are ready to take a serious look at the very real financial penalty assessed to those who choose a career in the classroom."

The EPI report is available in full on the institute's Web site at http://www.epi.org/books/teaching_penalty/teaching-penalty-full-text.pdf.

For additional information on teacher salary growth compared with other professions, visit the American Federation of Teachers Salary Survey page online: www.aft.org/salary.