“Teachers are concerned about salaries as part of their exchange relationship with a school district. In exchange for their services to the school district, teachers receive salaries, and these salaries dictate, at least for some teachers, the quality of life enjoyed by these individuals as consumers in the marketplace. Beyond issues of consumption enjoyed by teachers as employees, salaries received by most teachers represent a source of psychic fulfillment relative to their perceptions of self worth both as an employee and as an individual”–Young, Delli, Miller-Smith & Buster, 2004.
Starting teacher salaries are starting to lag other starting salaries in other fields like computer sciences, math and physical sciences and business management. The chart below details starting teacher salaries compared to other occupations in 2009:
Individuals who choose to teach over other professions may be doing so at a consider financial cost as teacher salaries have been in decline during the past three years. It is important to note that between 1978-1979, public elemenatary and secondary school teacher salaries fell over 3%, followed by a 6% drop the following year before picking up again in 1982. The question at large is how bad will the next leg down in teacher salaries be in 2013? So far there’s been nearly a 2.5% drop between 2011-2012. Below is a chart illustrating estimated wage erosion over the past three years for elementary and secondary public school teachers:
I expect gender shifts within occupations to take place during this period of decline. Gender distribution across occupations are interesting when looking at 2008 graduates. More women are entering the fields of education and healthcare than men while male graduates are outnumbering their counterparts in the fields of business and engineering. Wages in occupations that have a higher percentage of female workers have been found to drop relative to wages in similarly skills jobs that hold high male employment. This will be important to keep an eye on when it comes to future employment in education. Below is a chart detailing the percentage distribution of 2007-2008 first time bachelor’s degree recipients by selected fields and gender:
Similar to the 1970s and early 1980s, low teacher salaries will most likely lead to professional deescalation. Although there will be individuals who will remain loyal to their aspirations of becoming a teacher, there will be others who view the field of education as noble yet unstable.
Looking ahead, local school boards and collective bargaining units need to keep frontloading salary structures in mind to offer higher wage returns to novice teachers which will help off-set entry level wage decline and attract quality entry level teachers. Experienced teachers may be tempted to backload their salary structures especially as more college graduates who majored in education are forced into part-time teaching jobs and fewer school districts are opening new positions. This will continue to drive down novice teacher salaries. In the end, even novice teachers as professionals and consumers expect to enjoy at least a moderate level of comfort; school districts will need to pay a prevailing wage relative to other occupations in order to attract quality.
