Teacher Pay

Teachers are not paid enough. There isn't much about education reform that all people can agree on, but underpaid teachers seems to be as close to a unanimous position as possible, right? Teachers in Massachusetts are required to graduate from an accredited college, take 2 expensive tests in literacy and their subject-matter, complete a professional practicum, apply for accreditation to the state Department of Education, continually take professional development courses, and attain a Master's degree within 5 years. For all this work towards professional status, beginning teachers in this state usually start at about $35,000 per year (with many states paying even less).

However, a new report by the Manhattan Institute that was reported in the February 28, 2007 edition of Education Week says that teachers on average get paid "36% more than the average nonsales white collar worker." This puts teachers salaries higher than economists, registered nurses, and architects. While this may seem shocking at first glance, it actually makes a lot of sense. Whenever I go away on vacation, my landlord tells me that he wants to be a teacher in his next life since we have it so easy. We get 3 months off during the summer, another month during vacations throughout the year, we get to leave school at 2:40, and we get tenure giving us unprecedented job security. What a deal!

Many people have begun criticizing this report saying that it misses many of the special characteristics of the teaching profession. While it is true that teachers are usually only requred to work about 7 hours each day, many come early, stay late, and bring work home with them. Most teachers are only paid for 1 hour each day when they are not instructing students, time that they can grade, plan lessons, call parents, or talk to administrators. They argue that these types of reports should compare yearly, rather than hourly, salary. With that changed, teachers will again be at the bottom of the pay scale for their categorization.

However, this may actually be the wrong debate. It is not how much they are paid, but how the pay scale is determined. Currently, teacher pay is differentiated by degrees and years of service. The teachers that are paid the most are those who have gotten their doctorate and worked in the public school system for decades, regardless of the quality of their teaching. There is, in fact, no incentive to work hard. If at the end of the year my students have learned every one of the state frameworks in my subject and I have put in an excessive amount of hours grading papers and meeting with students individually, I will get paid the same amount as someone who uses the book activities and runs out of school before the kids do at the end of the day. A more fair system might be a pay scale based on additional factors (such as supervisor observations and student achievement) with some leeway for principals to encourage exceptional teaching. Either way, the pay system currently used in most public schools is not attracting the caliber of teacher that our schools need and we should continue to look for potential fixes.