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Assumptions

• Original Smart Money (2014): A teacher earns a master's degree in his or her field after working for four years, adding an additional 30 credits after eight years and 5 credits after 10 years, assuming that the teacher earns a PhD
• BA only: A teacher who only holds a bachelor's degree
• MA only: A teacher who only holds a master's degree in his or her field
• Progress to MA: A teacher who progresses toward a master's degree in his or her field in the first four years and earns a master's degree starting in the fifth year

• Typical teacher: Earns an effective evaluation rating every year and does not work in a high-need school or hard-to-staff subject
• Typical teacher, high-need: Earns an effective evaluation rating every year and receives the maximum pay available for working in a high-need school and/or hard-to-staff subject
• High-performing teacher: Earns a highly effective evaluation rating every year and does not work in a high-need school or subject
• High-performing, high-need: Earns a highly effective evaluation rating every year and receives the maximum pay available for working in a high-need school and/or hard-to-staff subject

Methodology

• NCTQ collected documentation available on district and union websites. Districts were not asked to provide the documentation.
  • Documentation included 2018-2019 salary schedules in all cases, and in some cases additional relevant documents were collected to support longevity pay, salary schedule function, performance pay, additional pay opportunities, etc.
  • Such documents often included collective bargaining agreements, compensation manuals, board policies, state laws, etc.


• Salary schedules
  • When a district had multiple salary schedules in use (e.g., a "new" schedule and a grandfathered schedule), NCTQ used the schedule on which a new hire in 2018-2019 would be placed.
  • NCTQ analyzed the salary schedule that most closely represents a 10-month (~180 day) school year.
  • Nontraditional salary schedules were used only if there was a clear pathway for lifetime earnings.
  • All salary schedules were classified as one of the following four types of schedules:
    • Traditional (step and lane)
    • Non-traditional
    • New hire schedule
    • No schedule


• Lane changes
  • For each of the four teacher assumptions, the salary lane that matched the given level of educational attainment in the analysis was used. If there was no matching lane, the next lane on the salary schedule was used as long as it did not jump to another degree level.
    • For example, if the analysis called for salary with a BA+15, but that lane did not exist on the salary schedule, BA+30 was used. If the salary schedule contained neither a BA+15 nor a BA+30, and MA was the next lane, the MA lane would not be used until the analysis called for the salary at that degree level.
  • In all cases, any restrictions on pay for advanced degrees (e.g., in-field certification) were noted, and it was assumed that any specified criteria for an advanced degree had been met.


• Step advancement was classified (e.g., Is one step granted each year? Is an evaluation rating a determining factor in advancement?)
  • In the absence of documentation to indicate otherwise, NCTQ assumed that all teachers advanced one step per year.
  • If step advancement was dependent on an evaluation rating, NCTQ advanced a teacher according to the evaluation ratings specific to each of the various teacher profiles (e.g., typical teacher assumes an effective rating; high-performing teacher assumes a highly effective rating).
    • Note: If teachers with an unsatisfactory rating were not allowed to advance a step, teachers in all profiles had the same step movement because NCTQ assumed that the average teacher is rated at least effective in all four profiles.


• Differentiated pay (captured in the "high-need" scenarios)
  • Bonus or stipend pay for working in high-need schools or working in hard-to-staff subject areas was included.
  • Bonus or stipend pay was included in every year of the analysis, including a teacher's first year with the district. It was assumed that a teacher earned the differentiated pay beginning on day one with the district.
    • Note that bonus/stipend pay was included in each year unless the district specified otherwise (e.g., a one-time bonus, a bonus for the first three years, etc.).
  • If there were multiple bonus/stipend pay options and varying stipend amounts, the highest bonus/stipend amount possible in each year was calculated for the analysis.
  • Teachers were given credit for bonus/stipend pay for both high-need schools and hard-to-staff subjects if both were options for bonus/stipend pay.


• Performance pay (captured in the "high-performing" scenarios)
  • Performance pay based on an evaluation rating was factored most often into the analysis via step advancement (see above explanation on step advancement) in the high-performing scenarios; however, when performance pay based on an evaluation rating resulted in bonuses and/or stipends, that additional pay was also factored into the high-performing scenarios.
  • Performance pay that was not based on an evaluation rating was also factored into the high-performing scenarios and was typically in the form of a bonus and/or stipend pay.
  • Because performance pay is typically outcome-based (i.e., requires prior experience in the classroom), no performance pay bonuses and/or stipends were included in a teacher's first year; therefore, the salary for a first-year teacher is the same in both the typical and the high-performing scenarios.
    • Any performance pay bonuses or stipend pay was applied beginning with the teacher's second year of teaching, unless the district had clear language that stated otherwise.
  • If a district offered performance pay based on a measure within an individual teacher's control (e.g., test score growth percentile), the performance pay was included in the high-performing teacher profiles.
  • If the district offered performance pay based on a measure outside the individual teacher's control (e.g., bonuses for school-wide test scores), it was not included.
  • Performance pay for anything that required additional responsibilities (e.g., teacher leadership roles) was also excluded from the analysis.


• Years to maximum pay
  • For each of the 16 teacher scenarios, the number of years required to reach maximum base pay in the highest salary lane analyzed (i.e., BA in the BA only analysis, MA in the progress to MA analysis) was noted.
    • In some cases, it took more than 30 years to reach maximum salary. In those instances, "more than 30 years" was noted rather than the reported number of years.
  • Longevity pay was included in years to maximum salary.


• Years to $75,000
  • For each of the 16 teacher scenarios, the number of years required to reach a salary of $75,000 was noted.
  • In some cases, it took more than 30 years to reach a salary of $75,000. In those instances, "more than 30 years" was noted.
  • In some districts, teachers' salaries never exceeded $75,000. In those districts, it was noted that salaries of $75,000 were not possible.
  • Longevity pay was included in the number of years it took to reach a salary of $75,000.


• Longevity pay
  • During the analysis period, NCTQ contacted all districts that provided longevity pay/bonuses in order to confirm the year(s) in which longevity pay was given, whether it was added to base salary or a one-time bonus, and whether or not it was cumulative.
  • In the absence of district confirmation, NCTQ made the following two assumptions in the analysis:
    • Once longevity was paid, it continued annually.
    • Longevity was cumulative.


• State laws
  • Relevant additional pay required by state law (e.g., pay for high-need schools or hard-to-staff subject areas) was included in the analysis only if it was made clear that the district did not already include this additional pay in the teacher's salary.


• District feedback
  • Upon completion of the analysis and internal fact checking, all districts were contacted and asked to confirm the following for a teacher's salary in 2018-2019:
    • Salary for a teacher with a BA and no experience
    • Salary for a teacher with 30 years' experience and a PhD
    • How step advancement worked/what the requirements were for step advancement
    • Role of education/advanced degrees (e.g., lanes and/or stipends for advanced degrees or any special requirements to qualify for the lanes/stipends)
    • Longevity pay (years and pay amounts)
    • Performance pay (requirements and pay amounts)
    • High-need school pay (requirements and pay amounts)
    • Hard-to-staff subject pay (requirements and pay amounts)
  • Any feedback received was processed by an NCTQ analyst, and if a correction to the analysis was warranted, it was made.


• NCTQ collected documentation and analyzed the salary schedules in 119 districts.
  • Ultimately NCTQ excluded 29 districts based on their 2018-2019 salary schedules.
    • Many Texas districts only specified the minimum, midpoint, and maximum salaries. In these districts, there was no way to analyze them in a consistent manner with other districts (e.g., it wasn't possible to predict annual salary).
    • A number of Florida districts only published new hire placement salary schedules. Following the first year of employment with the district, annual salary increase amounts were strictly based on evaluation rating.
    • Douglas County School District operated under a unique Salary Range schedule where only a few pay ranges were specified.
    • Milwaukee Public Schools, like Florida, only had a new hire placement salary schedule.
    • Shelby County Schools had a performance-based salary schedule that required too many assumptions to build out a salary trajectory for a teacher over 30 years.
  • NCTQ made reasonable assumptions for other districts' 2018-2019 salary schedules in order to include them in the analysis.
    • Austin Independent School District had both a new hire salary schedule and a continuing teacher salary schedule. Due to the numbering of steps and salary amounts, it was assumed that a teacher progressed through the entire new hire schedule and then moved to the continuing teacher schedule.
    • Baltimore City Public School System utilized a Career Pathway Salary Schedule that required teachers to earn Achievement Units to advance on the schedule. For the analysis, it was assumed that teachers earned the required number of Achievement Units on an annual basis to advance on the schedule.
    • Clark County School District utilized a Licensed Professional Salary Table that allowed teachers to advance a step annually but required teachers to earn 225 Contract Hours to advance a lane. Lane advancement was restricted to once every three years (or two years if working in a high-need school). For the analysis, it was assumed that teachers advanced a step annually and earned the required number of Contact Hours to move a lane every three years (or every two years in the high-need scenarios).
    • Portland Public Schools (ME) utilized a Professional Learning-Based Salary Schedule that allowed teachers to advance a step annually but required teachers to earn 225 Salary Contract Hours to advance a lane. Lane advancement was restricted to once every four years. For the analysis, it was assumed that teachers advanced a step annually and earned the required number of Salary Contact Hours to move a lane every four years.


• CWIFT and the teacher pay gap
  • The CWIFT (Comparable Wage Index for Teachers) is a "measure of the systematic, regional variations in the wages and salaries of college graduates who are not PK-12 educators as determined by reported occupational category."
  • The 2018 CWIFT by the local education authority (LEA) was used for this study. This index captures the variations in the labor cost of professionals outside the K-12 education industry.
  • The 2015 CWIFT national average predicted wage was $62,655. We used the Employment Cost Index: Wages and salaries for All Civilian workers in All industries and occupations from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to adjust that national wage to a 2018 equivalent. The resulting average national wage for professionals outside the K-12 education industry was $67,694.
  • For the K-12 education industry, we used a representative teacher profile that we judged to be comparable with the average professional profile outside the industry used by the CWIFT. Given that the composition of the teacher workforce is mainly master's and bachelor's degree holders, we used the "Progress to MA" profile for the purpose of creating a comparable teacher salary index.
  • The national average salary in our representative teacher profile is approximately $65,000, adjusted for regional price parity. That national average was used to construct a regional index of variations of the cost of labor within the K-12 industry, and this index was compared to the CWIFT by LEA to establish the wage gap between K-12 education professionals and other professionals in the same locality.

Districts included in the analysis

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