New survey: Teacher pay plays a big part in retention

The survey headline seems to state the obvious to anyone close to public education: "Larger Pay Increases and Adequate Benefits Could Improve Teacher Retention." But Rand, the nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that conducted the survey, provides hard evidence and details that could help us improve working conditions and convince teachers to stay in the profession.

Using its 2024 State of the American Teacher survey of 1,479 K-12 teachers, Rand came up with several key findings. Among them:

• Only one-third of K-12 public school teachers think their pay is adequate.
• One-third of teachers list low pay as the top reason they would consider leaving their job. It is also at the top of the list of things that contribute to job-related stress.
• Black teachers earn less than white teachers, receive the lowest pay increases and more frequently report that they perform extra work for no pay.

"This report confirms what anyone who knows a teacher knows: Better pay and benefits help retain teachers, and unions make a huge difference in securing better teacher pay and benefits," says AFT President Randi Weingarten. "The fact is, teachers still lag in compensation. Teachers want to make a difference in their students' lives, but their love for their students alone can't pay the bills. For too many years, our public schools and public school educators have faced the twin problems of lack of support and lack of adequate pay, and many are at a breaking point."

The view from the ground

Ternesha Burroughs

The Rand report is no surprise to educators whose lives are influenced every day by paychecks that fall short. Ternesha Burroughs, a high school teacher just outside Minneapolis and president of Education Minnesota-Osseo Local 1212, remembers that when she first started teaching-and earning $29,000 a year-she passed a KFC on her way to work and saw they were hiring assistant managers for $32,000. "I could have quit then, in all honesty," she says. "Smelling like fried chicken didn't seem so bad."

But Burroughs stuck with the profession she loves. Today, she is proud of the gains her union has made, including a $50,000 starting salary. Still, she sees that not everyone has access to that kind of success. Even districts that boast high salaries for experienced educators have pay scales that require decades to reach pay rates that are competitive with other professions. "Who's going to stick around that long?" asks Burroughs.

As for new teachers-many can't overcome the unpaid student teaching so frequently required for licensure. So Burroughs worries about people who leave the profession-and those who never start. Many of her friends who initially expressed interest in teaching chose other careers. "I'm not interested in being poor," they told her.

Gemayel Keyes

Those who do choose teaching often pick up second and sometimes third jobs to supplement their low income. Gemayel Keyes, a special education teacher and a member of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, works as a receptionist at a senior living community when he's not in the classroom, and he has plenty of colleagues who work as caregivers outside of their school jobs.

Poor resources and inadequate preparation for the challenges of an urban school environment also add to teacher stress, says Keyes. He's known a number of new teachers who have left the profession "rather than enduring a situation that isn't conducive to their mental health and financial well-being in the long run."

Another deep concern is the impact low salaries have on Black teachers in a landscape that cries out for more Black educators-not fewer. "There are already so few Black teachers like me," says Burroughs, who at one point was the only Black math teacher in her entire district. "We have so many Black and brown children, and they need more Black and brown teachers in their schools."

Among Rand survey respondents, Black teachers earned less than other respondents and reported the smallest pay increases. And this year, almost half of the Black teachers surveyed listed low pay as the top source of job-related stress. Retention among Black teachers is already lower than it is among other teachers, a particular problem for schools with a majority of Black students, who need those role models and relatable adults in their classrooms-but it's also important for all children, who deserve a diverse array of teachers to learn from.

Burroughs points out that union teachers enjoy policies that prevent that sort of discrepancy, but the union advantage is not available to everyone.

The union difference

With school districts struggling and funding always in question, how can we make this better? For one thing, joining a union makes a big difference. In the Rand survey, teachers in states requiring collective bargaining reported higher salaries and larger pay increases compared with those in states where bargaining is prohibited. The report also noted several instances of unions negotiating better benefits and working conditions.

That rise in starting salary that Burroughs described would not have happened without a union. Her union also supports a "grow your own" program to support people who want to become teachers, by making sure they are paid for their work while they do their student teaching. In Philadelphia, a similar grow-your-own program helped Keyes become a teacher: It pays for qualified paraprofessionals to get teaching degrees so once they are teachers, they are not burdened by debilitating student debt payments every month.

The Economic Policy Institute reports that the pay gap between teachers and similar professionals-showing that teachers make far less than their peers-improves among unionized teachers. Nonunionized teachers make 17.9 percent less than people in similar, nonteaching professions; for unionized public school teachers that gap goes down to 13.2 percent.

AFT members know firsthand the difference a union can make:

• The recent Newark (N.J.) Teachers Union contract provides a 4.5 percent raise for each of the contract's five years, plus additional increases for educators with master's degrees or Ph.D.s and those who have put in 35 or more years of service. The new starting salary will be $65,000, and in the fifth year of the contract it will be $74,000.
• The average raise over the course of the United Educators of San Francisco 2023-2025 contract is 19 percent, with an on-schedule raise of $9,000 in the first year and a 5 percent raise in the second.
• Last year United Teachers Los Angeles won a 21 percent increase in teacher pay over three years.
• The Washington Teachers' Union in Washington, D.C., increased starting salaries to $71,320 and also increased planning time and scheduled wellness days and implemented a better sick leave bank policy.

Decent pay and benefits are crucial, says Keyes. "While teaching is a career most turn to out of a passion, that's not what helps us survive in the real world," he says.

[Virginia Myers]

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