Having single-handedly brought states to their knees for the inaccurate ways they report student dropout rates, researcher Jay Greene is now turning his attention to what he calls the “myth” of low teacher pay. In How Much Are Public School Teachers Paid? Greene joined by Marcus Winters compare teachers’ salaries to those of other white-collar professionals.
Citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they report that “teachers earn 26 percent more per hour than the average white-collar worker and 11 percent more per hour than the average professional specialty and technical worker.” They claim that teachers, on average, earn more than architects, journalists and mechanical engineers alike, but acknowledge that they still fall quite short of lawyers’ rates of compensation. Perhaps lawyers’ additional bucks are compensation for the endless ridicule they endure–but then again, how much do insurance salesmen make?
Greene and Winters dismiss the notion that the hourly pay comparison is not a fair way to compare teacher compensation with other professions since the Bureau of Labor Statistics claims to account for the typical hours teachers actually work. Accordingly, Greene’s calculation does indeed take into account the hours teachers report working before and after school grading papers and preparing the next days lessons.
Teachers unions generally insist on annual salary comparisons for two reasons. They claim salary debates consistently underestimate the number of hours teachers work each day. Second, teachers’ 10-month work year should not necessarily be considered a teacher benefit, as some teachers may in fact prefer to work 12 months if given the opportunity to do so.
NCTQ’s new database, Teacher Rules, Roles, and Rights looks for an alternate way to look at teacher pay: a daily rate. NCTQ calculated daily pay rates based on the number of days teachers must report to duty as reported on the district calendar. This methodology accounts for the shorter work year, though it does not address hourly differences in actual time districts require teachers to be on-site–which often varies between districts. Though this methodology does not fit as easily into the BLS model, it ultimately allows for a fairer comparison of salaries among both school districts as well as among professions.