Why Is There a Teacher Shortage ?

 

A new report from EPI shows that the pandemic exacerbated a preexisting and long-standing shortage of teachers. The shortage is especially severe in schools with high shares of students of color or students from low-income families. The shortage is not because there is an inadequate number of qualified teachers in the U.S. economy. The problem is simply that there are too few qualified teachers willing to work at current pay levels, given the increasingly stressful environment facing teachers.   Teacher shortages are widespread, but are especially acute in some subject areas, as seen in the chart below.

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A shortage of qualified teachers and other staff threatens students’ ability to learn, undermining the education system’s goal of providing a sound education equitably to all children.  This situation must not be allowed to continue. To end the teacher shortage, we must address the two most pressing reasons for the problem: The long-standing decline in the pay of teachers relative to other workers with a college degree; and The high and increasing levels of stress public school teachers face every day in the classroom.

Duane, a sound education system is central to economic justice, and fair compensation and working conditions are necessary for a well-functioning education system. Please help EPI spread the word by sharing this chart with your networks and, if you are able, please consider making a gift to support EPI’s important work.

Thank you for your support and for helping to expand our reach.  John Schmitt Senior Economist  Economic Policy Institute

California Public Schools are Losing Underpaid Teachers at a Steep Rate

 STATE OF INEQUALITY

Districts struggle to fill open positions and see new waves of teacher departures this summer.

Published

 

on

 June 2, 2022

By

 Mark Kreidler 

Photo: Geo Piatt.

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Through the years, Kati Bassler has seen plenty of her teaching colleagues grab a side hustle or summer gig. It’s not uncommon. As Bassler puts it, these teachers often are paid a salary that doesn’t quite cut it, but they’re part of a profession that they value and don’t want to leave. So they take in extra cash where they can, and try to stay in the game.

Lately, Bassler says, the math has gotten worse. Many of her teaching peers in Monterey County are burned out, badly in need of a summer break after two years of pandemic-freighted workloads that taxed them mentally and emotionally. But they simply can’t stop.
 

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“Our area has some of the highest rents in the state,” Bassler explained. “Their full-time salaries are just not commensurate with the cost of living in this area. So a bunch of them will teach summer school or take other jobs for the money, even though they’ve been under tremendous pressure and could really use time to recharge.”

The conversation around elevating the standard of public education in California is a multifaceted one, just as it is across the country. But a fair place to start is that teachers must be able to afford to do their jobs.

Increasingly, they can’t. And the continued flight from the profession is both a chilling reminder of that affordability gap and, for those who remain in the classrooms doing the work, a call to arms.

Those studying the issue from the outside fully agree. “We have to stop treating our public school education system in this country as an afterthought,” said David Cooper, director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network at the Economic Policy Institute. “We are already facing a huge shortfall.”

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The EPI’s analysis of figures compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts that notion into bold relief. Since 2008, when effects of the Great Recession began to be felt, K-12 public education employment in the U.S. is down by about 432,000 people, a 5.3% hit. But if school staffing levels had kept pace with the actual growth in student enrollment from 2008 to 2021, the institute says that the shortfall would now be 8.6%.

That is a menacing number, but it’s in line with the experiences of many school districts in California, which is down 6.7% overall in public education employment since 2008 and experienced a massive surge in teacher retirements in both 2020 and 2021.

Bassler, president of the Salinas Valley Federation of Teachers, said the turnover rate of teachers and staff in the area is more than 10% a year, with tech educators prominent among those who have begun leaving for better paying jobs in the private sector.
 

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“When you adjust for inflation, there has been no change in teacher compensation over the past 20 years.” 

~ David Cooper, Economic Policy Institute

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The entry level salary for middle and high school teachers in Salinas, the largest city in Monterey County, is $48,000. A 2019 study by a website dedicated to rental reports and listings, meanwhile, found that the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment there was more than $2,000 per month (double the national average) and had increased by 50% in five years. A check this week found no two-bedroom units available for less than $2,350, except for in a low income housing project.

Spiraling health care costs ratchet up the financial pressure further, especially on new teachers. “They have nothing left for food,” said Bassler, an educator for 25 years. “These are the teachers we are hoping will be part of our community for years to come, and some of them have to access resources in the county for their groceries. It sucks, it really does.”

Beyond question, teachers and administrators say, the strain of attempting to work in public education during the pandemic has driven many out of the field or to early retirement. But the teacher shortage isn’t a new problem. Researchers say it was building for years, long before COVID. And one core issue, money, is every bit as obvious as it sounds.

SCTA Wins Pay Dispute with District

A court appointed arbitrator on Thursday ruled in favor of the teachers union in its salary schedule dispute with the Sacramento City Unified School District.

The district and the Sacramento City Teachers Association entered voluntary arbitration in March, after disagreeing over a salary increase for mid-career teachers.

According to the arbitrator’s ruling, the district breached its tentative agreement with the union regarding the salary schedule during the current school year.

“We look forward to working with the District to implement the arbitrator’s award immediately and hope that this decision encourages the District to honor our contract going forward,” read a statement from teachers union President David Fisher.

Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article229971374.html#storylink=cpy

How Much Should Teachers Get Paid ?

Educators don’t enter the profession expecting to get rich. They do it because they love teaching and because they have an unwavering belief in their students. But, they should also be able to support themselves. The sad truth is that many educators aren’t earning enough to make ends meet. Today, we’re releasing our annual data on educator pay. Click here to find out how your state ranks in educator pay and per pupil spending.

Educator Pay in Your State >

Each year, NEA publishes data on educator salaries. We collect statistics from state departments of education and 11,675 school districts, which account for 94 percent of all full-time educators. The data show in black and white (or, in this case, red and white) the dollar value each state places on its educators. To make matters worse, the pay gap between educators and other professionals is vast and growing, forcing many out of the profession and creating a teacher shortage crisis that threatens our students and communities. See how much educators make on average in your state and join the movement fighting for better resources for public school educators and students. How much we pay educators is just one indicator of the value our society places on education. As part of the Red For Ed movement, educators across the country are joining hands with parents and community members to fight for the resources public school students need to succeed—like a nurse, counselor, and librarian in every school; a living wage for education support professionals; and more class time for learning. Equipped with data like average educator pay and the teacher pay gap, we are able to better make the case that we can do better. Afterall, our children are worth it. Sincerely, Lily Eskelsen García President National Education Association

Teachers Should not have to beg for decent pay

John Affeldt, Public Advocates

Teachers in Sacramento, west Fresno County and Dublin may soon go on strike over the same bread and butter issues that were fought over in Oakland: low teacher pay, large class sizes, and few counselors and nurses.

If you didn’t know better, you might mistake California for a declining Rust Belt state. But it’s not. California is über-rich. The shameful truth behind all this discord is that California is fabulously wealthy; yet for decades, it has starved its public schools and 6 million children of the resources necessary to succeed.

With a GDP of $2.7 trillion, California is the world’s 5th largest economy—surpassed only by behemoths like China, Japan, Germany and the United States itself. Tech giants like Apple, Facebook, Netflix, and Google are synonymous with California. So are Fortune 500 companies like Chevron, Wells Fargo, Disney, Gap and Visa. Home to Hollywood, Napa Valley, Palm Springs, Disneyland and Lake Tahoe, tourists pump almost $132 billion into the economy every year. It’s the largest manufacturing state in the country, and this year, the Golden State will be home to thousands of new millionaires as tech companies rush to go public.

Yet, as Gov. Gavin Newsom has noted, California ranks 41st in per pupil spending nationwide. As a consequence, in our high-cost state, we have fewer adults—teachers, counselors, nurses, librarians, administrators—per student than all but two states and struggle to pay a living wage to those who serve.

In a state with such vast wealth, we actually can afford to meet the school funding shortfall—which one recent study concluded to be some $25 billion annually. Without that investment, we are doomed to repeat the same battles over paying teachers a fair wage vs. providing basic resources vs. supporting high-need students—battles that end with short-term unsustainable bargains and underperforming students.

We’re already seeing cash-strapped districts tap into money set aside for English learners, foster youth and low-income students to pay for across-the-board raises and class-size reductions. In the case of the Los Angeles district, financial reserves are covering the immediate $330 million cost of its recent settlement, but it appears the bulk of the money promised in the deal was originally intended for high-need students. In Oakland, successful foster youth case managers and restorative justice programs are being cut to scrape together funds to settle its contract.

The good news is that for the first time since the massive cuts to education in the 1970s, we have a governor calling for a conversation on funding adequacy. In fact, several revenue ideas are floating around Sacramento that deserve consideration—from joining the majority of states that tax services in addition to income, to closing gas tax and inheritance loopholes, to enhancing options for local school boards or counties to raise school revenue, to name just a few.

More immediately, the governor and the Legislature can take action to relieve school districts of the disproportionate pension burden foisted upon them in 2014 beyond the $3 billion temporary fix that Newsom has already proposed.

Newsom could also come out in strong support of the 2020 ballot proposition to amend Proposition 13 by requiring the regular reassessment of commercial property at fair market value while leaving in place protections for homes. That move alone would raise nearly $5 billion annually for education.

But more than words and promises of conversations, we need bold action now to equitably share California’s vast wealth. Our teachers and students shouldn’t have to beg.

John Affeldt is a managing attorney at Public Advocates in San Francisco, where he focuses on educational equity issues through litigation, policy advocacy and partnerships with grassroots organizations.

What Are California Teachers Paid ?

California teachers saw a modest pay bump in 2018, with average teacher pay exceeding $80,000, new state figures show.

The average teacher salary in 2018 was $80,680, up 2 percent from 2017, according to the data. Staffing declined slightly, falling by about 1,700, or 0.6 percent, from 2017 to 2018.

Cloud Database by Caspio

Go to the Sac Bee site to compare teachers’ salaries. 

Among other findings: The average superintendent salary in 2018, excluding part-timers, was roughly $200,000. That figure reflects base pay and does not include the stipends and bonuses incorporated into many school chiefs’ contracts.

The data also show that teacher pay continues to vary widely by district. Twenty school districts, mostly in the Bay Area, paid their teachers, on average, more than $100,000 in 2018. Another 17 districts, mostly in rural areas, paid their teachers an average salary that fell below $50,000 annually. The disparities in pay reflect, at least in part, the wide variations in housing expenses and community affluence in different regions of California.

Among large districts in the Sacramento region, the highest average teacher pay is found in Roseville. The lowest average pay is found in Natomas and the city of Sacramento.

The figures come from an annual survey published by the California Department of Education.Roughly 22 percent of districts -- most of them very small -- did not report 2018 teacher pay data to the state. Districts that reported salaries educate about 99 percent of students in California.

Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/article3187034.html#storylink=cpy

U.S. Teachers Work Really Hard

American teachers work hard. Like, really hard.

Rebecca Klein

This year's education report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development outlines the state of education in the world's most developed countries. It finds that American elementary school teachers spend more hours actually teaching students than peers in any other surveyed country.

The graph below details how much time elementary school teachers spend in front of the classroom:

American middle school and high school teachers spend more time educating students than peers in every OECD country except Chile, according to the report. In addition to classroom time, U.S. teachers are required to be at school for more hours than most of their international peers.

Despite the long hours, American teachers aren't well compensated, Andreas Schleicher, OECD director of education and skills, explained in a call with reporters Monday. While U.S. raw teacher salaries are high compared with the rest of the world, the pay lags behind that of similarly educated American workers.

“Teacher pay relative to other countries, in absolute terms, is quite competitive in the United States," said Schleicher. "But when you look at this relative to the earnings of other people with college degrees, actually the United States is pretty much at the end of the scale."

The OECD graphic below shows how teachers' salaries compare with other college-educated workers in each country. The report found that teachers are paid more than comparably educated workers in only seven countries.

If they arm teachers.

If they arm teachers.

Then, teachers  in California deserve Public Safety Officer pay, and Public Safety Officer pensions.  Do you wish to discuss this ?  That would mean a 30 -50% increase in pay and pensions.

The American People are Angry

Low Pay is threat to federal courts- and schools

How poignant. “Pay for federal judges is so inadequate that it threatens to undermine the judiciary’s independence.” Says Chief Justice John Roberts. (Sac Bee, January 1,2007)
Lets see, judges are paid $165,000, 175,000 and $203,000 each.
A new teacher in California starts at around $37,000 and average teacher earns about $45,000 per year.
Which is most valuable to you? Is it a judge who you might encounter once or twice in your life? Or, is it a teacher who will be caring for your child every day for 185 days per year, for about 12 years?
Yes, judges deserve better pay, right after teachers get a pay increase to about $100,000 per year.
And the pay of California legislators- well that’s another story.

Duane Campbell