Teacher pay is only part of the issue

by Mebane Rash, NC Center for Public Policy Research, published in Durham Herald-Sun, December 7, 2013.

Teacher pay is getting a lot of attention lately with the issue looming large for the legislative session starting in May 2014.

Across the political spectrum, people agree that we need good teachers.  Good teachers need to be well prepared for the classroom.  And they need support once they are in the classroom.  But the issue is more complicated than raising pay alone, calling for us as a state to wrestle with our regard for the teaching profession and to think about how we can lift up the status of teachers.

As we consider how much to pay teachers, we need to be less concerned about what other states are paying and more concerned about what level of pay it will take to get our best and brightest to teach in our schools.  The cost of living in New York, for example, makes raw comparisons of teacher salaries there and in North Carolina less relevant.  It is more important to think about the other jobs the bright young people we want in our classrooms are considering instead and what those jobs pay.  Gov. Pat McCrory’s office is currently working on a teacher pay plan that will consider master’s degree pay and pay raises.

According to a report by the National Educational Association released in December 2012, the average salary for public school teachers in 2011-12 was $45,947, ranking North Carolina 46^th in the country.  More important is the NEA’s finding that North Carolina leads the nation in the decline of average salaries at 15.7 percent between 2002-12.  Across the country, the average decline was 2.8 percent.  It wasn’t too long ago, in 2000-01, that North Carolina ranked 21^st in the country.

The annual starting salary for teachers with a bachelor’s degree is $30,800.  In a family of four with only one parent working as a teacher, the children would qualify for reduced price lunches.  Compounding the problem is that $30,800 is the annual salary not only for entry-level teachers but also for teachers with up to five years of experience.  Imagine taking a job with the expectation that your starting salary will not increase until you have six years of experience regardless of performance.  The salary increase, once you get it, is only $42 a month.

Local supplements paid to teachers also need to be part of the debate on teacher pay.  These supplements range from $0 to $6,441, with eight counties not offering supplements.  In Durham County Schools, the average local supplement is $5,227 – 4^th highest in the state.

As points of reference, the average per capita personal income in North Carolina was $37,049 in 2012.  The median household income is $46,291 – keep in mind that number is a five-year average from 2007-11 andhousehold income.

We need to get teacher pay right, or we may be headed to a place where teaching is less a profession and more a stepping stone to other careers.  Trip Stallings, a former teacher in Durham and now at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, believes the day of the career teacher may be over.  He asks, “Does this state want it to be OK for teachers to teach five or 10 years and then move on?”  Almost 50 percent of the teachers who left in 2012-13 had career status.

Teacher turnover over the past 10 years has consistently hovered around 12 percent, between a low of 11.1 percent in 2010 and a high of 13.85 percent in 2008.  In 2012-13, according to the Department of Public Instruction’s Teacher Turnover Report released last week, of the 95,028 teachers employed by the public school system in North Carolina, 13,616 teachers left their jobs, for a total system turnover rate of 14.33 percent.  This increase is cause for concern.

In 2011-12, 19 school districts experienced turnover higher than 15 percent.  In 2012-13, that number rose to 45 districts, and two of those had turnover rates higher than 30 percent – Northampton (35.09 percent) and Halifax (31.27 percent).

Durham County Schools employed 2,287 teachers in 2012-13.  Of the 461 that left, 188 had career status.  The turnover rate was 20.16 percent, up from 18.25 percent the year before.  Of the teachers who left, 172 (37.31 percent) remained in education; 122 (26.46 percent) left for reasons beyond their control; 136 (29.50 percent) left for personal reasons, including those dissatisfied with teaching or seeking a career change; and 31 (6.72 percent) left for reasons initiated by the district.

But the real problem is not captured in these numbers.  A teacher with decades of experience in public schools in Durham says, “I truly loved teaching for a long time, and my life as a teacher, regardless of pay.  I am completely discouraged and saddened by the state of my profession, but it is only in part about salary.”

“Because of testing, there is no risk taking, there is no curiosity – only timetables and monotony, all day, every day.  Teaching as I knew it for so long is gone.”

“I work with young teachers who would be great, but they won’t last, and not because of pay.  Teacher pay has never been good, but teaching was, at one time, fulfilling, and it just simply isn’t anymore.”

Since 2004, the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research has recommended that the state require teacher retention improvement plans for all local school districts where turnover exceeds 15 percent.  Through the state’s Race to the Top grant, 12 districts, including Durham, received support for recruitment and retention plans.  Statewide, 33 more plans are still needed.

The legislature will need to grapple with more than pay issues if we want teachers to find this profession fulfilling again.  Teachers educate our work force.  As the guardians of the future of this state, the issues of pay, turnover, performance, and job satisfaction deserve to be addressed collectively and completely, instead of separately and with lingering uncertainty.