Blog #5 - Issues Impacting Education - Teacher Pay

The teacher cost of living article raised some interesting thoughts regarding the pay of educators. Pay is normally compared against a national average; however, cost of living is often not brought into the discussion when considering how well teachers are truly paid. Cost of living truly seems to make a difference when comparing teacher pay.

Initially, teachers in large urban areas (New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hartford) appeared to be compensated at the highest rates. However, when cost of living adjustments were made, their ranks fell from 1-5 to 25, 49, 13, 48, and 20, respectively. Conversely, a number of cities in the Southeast moved up in the rankings. These include: Memphis (26 to 5), Louisville (22 to 8), Atlanta (18 to 10), Augusta (36 to 19), Huntsville (37 to 22), and Birmingham (30 to 23). Nashville was not included in the study.

The information provided is the average of teacher salaries, which seems to be based on averaging the entry level and 20-year level salaries. I came to this realization as I was reviewing the pay scale for Memphis City Schools, which was included on their list of schools in the article. In the article, the unadjusted average salary reported for Memphis is $45,108. According to the MSC website, new teachers with a Bachelor’s degree are paid $39,467 while teachers with the same degree and 20 years experience are paid $55,476. I pulled the data for Memphis City Schools, though it was not clear whether the article was using information for the Memphis Metropolitan Statistical Area, Memphis City Schools, or Shelby County Schools.

I think it is also important to consider tenure as well. It might be interesting to know what the “real” average salary is for the school system. This would depend on the whether the system has a higher concentration of new or tenured teachers. This could tell a lot about the school system or may raise a lot of questions. For example, if a system has a low percentage of tenured teachers, did the system have a number of teachers retire or are there other issues causing teachers to leave the system.

Another interesting perspective would be to learn more about student achievement and how it correlates to teacher pay. Do school systems with higher overall salaries (real and adjusted) have higher achievement rates? To better understand the communities in which the teachers work, it might also be valuable to consider how teacher salaries compare to the salaries of other jobs within that same city.

When I conduct professional development trainings for educators who will be teaching the new personal finance course, cost of living is one of the topics that we discuss. One of the personal finance standards is “income” and related performance indicators are “interpret factors affecting income” and “career choices and potential income.” I find it encouraging that this course provides the opportunity to cover cost of living and how it will impact the future career choices of students based on where they reside. I think it is important that no matter what the profession, students understand their potential for income, but also where they must go to have that job, what type of training is required, what the related costs of such training will cost them, and what the future potential is for such a career. Helping our students be better armed with information to make these decisions will help them in making better overall decisions and analysis in a number of areas.