Teacher salaries

NPR has just released an interesting article on teacher salaries. The article begins noting that this is the campaign season and focusing on Democratic candidates lists several campaign promises related to teacher salaries. Bernie Sanders proposes raising the starting salary to $60,000.

The article continues using this $60,000 mark as a starting point. At present the average teacher salary is $62,000 and the average starting salary is closer to $40,000. The average teacher makes about $10,000 more than that average working citizen, but nearly 20% less than those with comparable education. If you visit the NPR site for this article you will have to use the link within the article for the comparison among professions.

I have been responsible for hiring new PhDs in my administrative role before retirement from a mid-level university and what Bernie proposes was about what we were hiring new PhDs at. The topic of what is a comparable profession is complicated and even though the NPR article suggested that the Economic Policy article provided data on comparable professions equating on years of college is overly simplistic. I am not certain what I consider comparable. I used to think Nursing and K12 Education were comparable, but I don’t think this is still the case.

What is a fair salary is a very difficult issue to determine. So many factors are different across occupations and even salaries can be misleading without the consideration of benefit packages that come with jobs. There is also the 9 month contract which as a college professor I also know is very misleading. Salary increases in most universities are competitive so you may have the summer off from teaching and a regular pay check, but if you have a research expectation you pretty much have to work on grants and writing if you want to compete. K12 teachers can spend time and money taking additional college courses to move up the pay scale. There are things the general public do not see (or more dangerously see in a local case or two) that are necessary to understand the actual circumstances of a profession.