At heart of teachers’ stories, fundamental questions of fairness
Their work is central to a thriving society, but teachers typically can’t realize that value – at least not monetarily. Our writer talks about reporting on a U.S. push to lift teacher pay. It’s a high-stakes story about equality and fairness.
Do teachers’ paychecks reflect their value to society?
That’s one question at the core of an early-stage push – by way of the American Teacher Act – to put in motion the establishment of a $60,000 base salary.
“There tends to be broad public support for teacher raises,” education writer Jackie Valley says on the Monitor’s “Why We Wrote This” podcast, “and we’ve seen [after] issues such as teacher shortages and pandemic learning loss that maybe people will galvanize around this.”
That’s not a given, says Jackie, who recently wrote about the issue. Among the pushback factors: the need to find funds by raising taxes or cutting other services to offset higher teacher compensation. That’s “always a dicey political conversation,” Jackie notes.
One effect: Some teachers weigh transferring their skills to more lucrative jobs. Or keeping their day jobs and moonlighting, putting themselves at risk of burnout. And if compensation were improved? Jackie’s interviews hinted at an alternative picture.
“If [teachers] feel like they’re making decent money, and say they’re not working at Kohl’s at night or on the weekends, they’re fresh, they’re ready to tackle the day, and be 100% there for their students,” she says.
Episode transcript
Clay Collins: Pretty much everyone remembers a favorite teacher, someone who quietly helped shape them as a person, beyond just transferring academic knowledge. Many of us who have kids have seen the same thing happen for them, but all of that value arguably doesn’t get reflected in paychecks.
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Collins: I’m Clay Collins, and this is “Why We Wrote This.” Joining us today is one of the Monitor’s newest staff writers. Jackie Valley covers education. She recently looked at a new move to raise the baseline for teachers’ salaries nationwide. Welcome, Jackie!
Jackie Valley: Hi, Clay. It’s nice to be here.
Collins: So, beyond just being lifelong influences, today’s teachers are dealing with all sorts of extras, everything from chatbots to, you know, mass-shooting drills. But it’s still a given that teaching is not a vocation that pays well. What are some of the main reasons that persist in the U.S.?
Valley: I think it’s a variety of issues. The first one that might spring to mind is the perception that teachers have summers off, and they only work nine months a year, which, you know, if you do the math on the numbers they probably put in during the year, [it] somewhat negates that. There’s also a gender issue. We know it’s a female-dominated field. There are efforts to change that. But we just know that the male to female pay scales are always tipped a little in favor of males. And then I think one of the bigger reasons is probably that school districts rely primarily on state and local funding for their budgets. And so if we’re talking about teacher pay, labor makes up the largest share of their budgets, and any sort of significant raise would come at a cost for the government. And that could be a matter of raising taxes, or cutting services in other areas. So I think it’s always a dicey political conversation, even though there tends to be broad support for teacher pay overall.
Collins: You reported on a push to get better pay into law. The American Teacher Act would ultimately establish federal grants requiring states and districts to put in motion the establishment of a $60,000 base salary. How likely is action?
Valley: I think ultimately it will need bipartisan support. The original bill that was filed in mid-December had all Democratic sponsors and co-sponsors. They hope to broaden that, of course. But I think it's also important to remember that ... [t]his is in the very, very, very beginning stages. There are, of course, competing issues about federal debt. But I think supporters are hopeful that because there tends to be broad public support for teacher raises, and we’ve seen issues such as teacher shortages and pandemic learning loss, that maybe people will galvanize around this.
Collins: Right. You spoke to a lot of educators for this story. Did you see at least measured optimism among educators about better pay?
Valley: Yeah, definitely. There was one teacher in Mississippi. Her name’s Crystal Jackson. She’s a special-education teacher. And, now, Mississippi is one of the states that did recently on their own, boost teacher pay; it was on a smaller level. It was about a $5,000 or so increase for her. It brought her up to $50,000. She’s 31 years old. So she certainly has experience in the classroom. And she thought that was great because that was the most she’d ever been paid. But at the same time, she is still working a second job as a waitress and bartender. So her comment was, you know, “I’m thrilled that I got up to that $50,000 baseline. However, I know that if I had chosen another career path the odds are that I would be making more than what I am right now.” So I think they’re hopeful, but they know based on just how legislation moves at the state level, that this takes time and isn’t always a guaranteed slam dunk.
Collins: You often think about teachers as being pretty unshakable in their commitment to their work, and finding ways to keep at it, whether that means, you know, buying their own classroom supplies…. But did you find any teachers who were just choosing to defect from the profession out of economic necessity?
Valley: There is a financial reality people face. It’s maybe one thing to make $40,000, $50,000 dollars as a single person, but what happens if you get married and want to start a family, or have other needs that arise in life? One of the other teachers I talked to, Dawrin Mota, he’s in that position. He’s married and they have kids. So he has eclipsed that $60,000 threshold, which is of course what the federal bill is aiming to make as the minimum. But even then, he’s still operating a side business cleaning houses. And frankly, that’s more money that he would make than if he just did tutoring after school or things like that.
I think there’s this acknowledgment that, yes, teachers love what they do, but they know that they could leave the field and probably somewhat immediately make the same or more money. I did a separate story last year, talking to teachers who did leave the field. And many of them said that they found that their skills were so transferable that it was easy to get a different job. And so I think there’s that danger. And burnout is real. I have a twin sister who’s a teacher. And she’s one of those overachievers who loves crafting the creative lesson plans and all of that stuff. And so I’ll see her kind of on a roller coaster throughout the year, where she’ll be super excited about what she’s doing, and then she’ll come crashing down at some point, because it’s just so much in terms of the grading and the testing requirements and student behaviors and other responsibilities that schools place on teachers. It’s one of those things I think, teachers deal with trying to manage the mental, physical stressors of it when they’re evaluating pay as well.
Collins: Hmm. I mean, this might be a topic on which it’s kind of easy to slide toward advocacy, right? But, you know, where does the debate stand on what would actually represent fairness here? Is a $60,000 baseline really going to be enough from educators’ perspective? Is it just untenable for some school districts?
Valley: If you ask the office of Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, who’s sponsoring this bill, they say that’s just the floor. It’s not the ceiling. But if you look at what the average starting salary is across the U.S., it’s somewhere right around $41,000. So $60,000 would be a huge jump for many teachers. Sure, some states are paying that already. But I think the larger question, too, is, OK, if this is the baseline, how long-term do you ensure that teachers have a viable career path? Because what you often hear is that teachers feel somewhat stuck if they don’t want to become administrators, that there’s no good way to earn significantly more. It’s a long-term question, but they see $60,000 as something that would at least bring meaningful change to some folks, and perhaps attract more people to the field as well.
Collins: So assuming the money can be found at the district level and the allocations agreed to by everyone, including the taxpayers, what might be some of the effects of better compensated educators on society?
Valley: Yeah, well, in speaking to teachers, one thing I heard pretty loud and clear was that it would relieve them of that extra burden. If they feel like they’re making decent money, and say they’re not working at Kohl’s at night or on the weekends, they’re fresh, they’re ready to tackle the day, and be 100% there for their students.
Collins: Well, thanks very much for joining us, Jackie, on one of your first Monitor stories, and taking us through that. And welcome to the Monitor.
Valley: Thank you so much. It’s fun to be here.
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Collins: Thanks for listening. For more, including show notes with a link to Jackie’s story, go to CSMonitor.com/WhyWeWroteThis. This episode was hosted by me, Clay Collins, co-produced by Jingnan Peng and Morgan Anderson. Our engineers were Jeff Turton and Alyssa Britton. Original music by Noel Flatt. Copyright, The Christian Science Monitor 2023.
