馃攳
Why Teachers Are Paid So Little In The U.S. - YouTube
Channel: CNBC
[0]
So your answer is really
good at negative point
[2]
six, you guys are rock
stars and how are you
[6]
doing out there, OK?
[9]
Yeah. Tell me
what you're thinking.
[12]
I think I like it.
[14]
I just I'm a little
bit confused with the
[16]
equation part. And I
almost everyone remembers
[19]
that one teacher who
had a transformative impact
[22]
on their life, the
teacher that made school
[25]
exciting and interesting and
that genuinely cared
[28]
teacher quality is the
number one school related
[31]
factor to
student achievement.
[33]
So no stress on that
this weekend, Anna it's going
[36]
to be beautiful weather.
So go enjoy it.
[38]
In the meantime, you all
take good care of
[40]
yourselves. All right. I'm going
to let you go a
[42]
couple of minutes
early today.
[43]
This is an
extremely important profession.
[46]
Teachers literally have the
future of the
[51]
country in front of
them every day.
[54]
But the teaching profession
is in turmoil.
[57]
The wage gap between teachers
and others with the
[59]
same level of education
and experience is nearly
[62]
20 percent and growing.
[64]
I think I'd be remiss to
say I haven't had that
[67]
moment where I was like
I could probably double
[69]
my salary if I
left and went elsewhere.
[72]
I've never been really
tempted enough to actually
[75]
pull the trigger and I
really love what I do.
[79]
And and there is no
other job like this.
[82]
In some areas of the country,
up to a quarter of
[85]
teachers leave the profession
annually and about
[88]
one fifth of the workforce
has to resort to a
[91]
second job. The pandemic
is likely making things
[94]
worse. The exodus of some
of our best and
[97]
brightest teachers is that
they realize they
[99]
can't stay in a life
that they had dreamed of.
[102]
So why are teachers
paid so little?
[104]
And is there anything that
can be done to change
[106]
that?
[114]
Hey, guys, how's
everybody at home?
[116]
I say everybody's
finally here.
[118]
It's all good. This
is Kate Diaz.
[120]
She's a math and
statistics teacher at Manchester
[123]
High School
in Connecticut.
[124]
She's been working here
her entire career, nearly
[127]
21 years. I came to
teaching late in the game.
[130]
I wasn't necessarily somebody
who went through
[132]
high school and college thinking,
I'm going to be
[134]
a teacher. I
was substitute teaching.
[136]
I was trying to kind
of navigate those roads.
[138]
And that was where
my aha moment was.
[140]
I was like,
this is perfect.
[141]
Show me one
of your first.
[144]
My first. OK, let's see.
[146]
This is fun
with my first.
[148]
The first contract. Yeah.
[149]
This is the first. So, you
know, 20 years ago if
[152]
you had gone through five,
you know, a bachelor's
[155]
and master's, you're still
entering at thirty six
[158]
thousand. We have what we
call like a slow burn
[161]
in teaching. So there is
this gradual kind of
[164]
incremental increase that we
are we contractually
[168]
will negotiate. And then we
hit what we call the
[170]
max ten years in I
was probably at about sixty
[172]
thousand now, twenty one
years and I'm about
[175]
ninety thousand. That's considered
high in the
[177]
U.S. for example, in
Mississippi, the lowest
[180]
paying state, a teacher
with 20 years of
[182]
experience makes around
fifty thousand dollars.
[185]
The average starting salary
is just over forty
[188]
thousand dollars. That's not
a living wage in
[190]
many parts of
the country.
[192]
I don't think the wages match
sort of the level of
[194]
expectation of
the position.
[195]
If you look at a teacher
and you say to them, we
[197]
want you to be a therapist,
we want it to be a
[200]
social worker, we want you
to be a teacher,
[203]
obviously, we want you
to have some safety
[207]
training. And then you learn
the joys of the
[209]
pandemic and learning to
teach online and to
[211]
teach remotely. But don't forget
that we do have
[213]
the joy of standardized
testing that we're going
[215]
to layer on top of that
and then we're going to
[217]
evaluate how you're
successfully navigating all
[220]
of the challenges facing
the world while you're
[223]
teaching a kid to read.
[225]
Since the 1990s, the
average inflation adjusted
[228]
teacher salaries have
remained largely stagnant
[231]
and even declined in
the majority of states.
[234]
That and the
increasing stressful environment
[237]
have resulted in low
retention rates, shortages
[241]
and national teachers strikes
around the country.
[244]
In twenty eighteen, three
hundred and seventy
[246]
five thousand school employees
walked out to
[249]
demand increased education
funding and better
[252]
pay. The full effects of
the pandemic remain to
[255]
be seen, although experts
say it's not looking
[258]
good. The movement, red for
ED was all about
[261]
saying we need to pay
attention to who the
[263]
teachers are and to what
they're doing and to
[266]
what their
compensation is.
[267]
And it gave a national
platform to the question
[270]
of do we value education?
[274]
The American public school system,
as we know it
[276]
today, was invented about
a hundred years ago.
[279]
Before that, it was
mostly men teaching quite
[281]
quickly. It was reconfigured
into, quote unquote,
[285]
women's work. And one of
the big reasons was, is
[288]
that you could save
money for the taxpayer.
[291]
And so this kind of set
the bedrock, the tone and
[294]
a sense that this was
relatively low paid work.
[297]
In the 1960s, teaching
paid women 15 percentage
[301]
points better than if
they'd chosen another
[303]
field. But at that
time, options were limited.
[306]
That's not the
case anymore.
[308]
Still, teaching is
overwhelmingly a female
[310]
profession and has become
more so over time.
[313]
Today, more than three
quarters of teachers are
[315]
females. A lot of it boils
down to the status of
[319]
the line of work. There
was this idea that, gosh,
[322]
you don't have to
be that smart.
[323]
It's not as complex, as
difficult as, you know,
[327]
being an accountant, working
with numbers, being
[329]
a dentist, working
with teeth.
[331]
Sylvia Allegretto has
been studying something
[333]
called the Teacher Pay
Penalty or teacher wage
[336]
gap for nearly 20 years.
[338]
Allegretto and her partner
found that the weekly
[341]
wage penalty for teachers
has gotten worse over
[343]
time. Today, men make about
27 percent less and
[348]
women make about 16 percent
less than if they had
[350]
chosen another profession With
the same level of
[353]
education and experience.
[354]
You have to wonder how
are you going to attract
[358]
students into the
teaching profession?
[360]
An international comparison
with the Organization
[363]
for Economic Cooperation
and Development, or
[366]
OECD, found that teachers
in the U.S.
[368]
make nearly 60 percent
less than that of
[370]
similarly educated professionals
lowest across
[373]
all OECD countries.
[375]
The claims of a teacher
pay gap are that teachers
[378]
earn less than similarly
educated private sector
[381]
workers. What this ignores,
which in every other
[384]
context we know very well,
is there within any
[387]
given educational category, There
is a lot of
[391]
differentiation in pay.
[392]
We all know today that
people who graduate from a
[395]
top college with a
bachelors degree in
[397]
engineering or another STEM
field earn a great
[401]
deal in the
private sector.
[403]
We also know that people
who graduate with a
[405]
liberal arts degree aren't going
to earn quite so
[408]
much. There's not one
answer to this question.
[410]
There's not a national
answer to this question
[412]
because. Salary levels differ
and markets as an
[416]
example, in Florida, there
are schools that train
[420]
engineers and there are a
lot of jobs that
[423]
actually the salary levels
there for engineers
[425]
are lower salaries in
Massachusetts for teachers,
[429]
as an example, are two
or three times higher than
[432]
salaries in Arizona
in most localities.
[436]
We find teachers significantly
under the family
[440]
living wage. The profession
has been known to
[443]
have great benefits, according
to Biggs, twice as
[446]
generous as for the
average private sector
[448]
worker. But studies show
that teachers only
[451]
receive their pension if
they stay in the
[452]
profession for 25 years or
more, and only a
[456]
quarter reached a break.
[457]
Even point on total
contribution and interest.
[460]
Weekly wages actually really
matter because you
[463]
can't pay your rent or
pay for your food from
[466]
your benefits. So you
have to find alternate..
[468]
Income Mobility is another
source of contention.
[471]
Unless a teacher moves to
a higher paying state,
[475]
wages only increase one to
two percent per year
[478]
in a private industry.
[479]
If you're doing really
well, you'll be eligible
[482]
for a raise or you're
going to shift companies.
[484]
We end up sort of stuck
in the profession as the
[487]
only way to kind
of substantially increase your
[490]
salary is to
leave the profession.
[492]
Raising teacher quality is
the number one driver
[495]
to improve student achievement,
and the U.S.
[498]
is falling behind
international counterparts.
[500]
It's one of our highest
ideals that we're going to
[504]
make the adequate investments
in all of public
[507]
education so that each and
every kid in this
[509]
country is able to get
a good and decent
[513]
education. And we're falling
short of those
[517]
promises. But increasing
teacher salaries seem
[520]
unlikely at the moment.
[521]
Even at times when
education spending increased,
[524]
it still didn't
impact salaries.
[527]
On top of that, there are
a lot of teachers out
[529]
there, about three and a
half million In fact.
[532]
It's been hard to
tackle teacher compensation
[535]
right now because there's so
low to start with
[538]
that there's always this
feeling that any
[541]
solution, somebody loses.
[543]
And so how do you get
out of this zero sum winners
[548]
and losers kind of situation
to close the EPI
[552]
teacher compensation gap?
[553]
Andrew Biggs estimates that
it would cost roughly
[556]
twenty nine
billion dollars.
[558]
The CARES Act included
thirteen point two dollars
[560]
billion in direct funding
for K-12 public
[563]
education, but that was less
than two percent of
[566]
total public
education funding.
[568]
An additional relief from
Congress is uncertain
[570]
at the moment. Kiran
works with school districts
[573]
around the country to
figure out how to
[575]
reallocate available money
to maximize results.
[578]
She says one viable
solution is creating
[581]
leadership roles.
[582]
In Washington, D.C., for
example, teachers can
[585]
make up one hundred
and thirty thousand dollars.
[587]
The way they funded
that was a first.
[590]
They got outside support,
transport and and
[593]
helped to fund the transition
to a new salary
[596]
structure. Then they transitioned
to a new salary
[599]
structure where they paid
the teachers that did
[601]
the most and worked
in the toughest assignments
[604]
significantly more.
[605]
They freed it up
by reducing staff.
[607]
Also in the salary
structures, it means probably
[610]
giving less money for
every additional year and
[615]
linking the raises instead
to changing roles.
[618]
Experience matters, but
experience matters if
[621]
it's leading to
good teaching.
[623]
Washington, D.C. is just one
of the over thirteen
[626]
thousand five hundred school
districts in the US,
[629]
while the red for ed
movement resulted in 15
[631]
states increasing
salaries.
[633]
A complete overhaul of
pay structure for the
[635]
profession, such as the
one in Washington, D.C.,
[638]
could take a long
time, Money and resistance.
[640]
People get into teaching, really
do get into it
[642]
for some very
altruistic notions.
[644]
For this to be a
sustainable profession, we have
[647]
to build a model
that's financially sustainable
[650]
for people. Otherwise, what
will be is a
[652]
revolving door profession where
people come in,
[655]
hang out as long as they
can, and then leave to
[658]
go make money. And that's
not what we want.
[660]
We know that the
best teachers come from
[662]
experience, they come from
commitment, and they
[665]
come from the willingness
to stay and really
[667]
learn about the
communities, learn their
[668]
curriculum, learn
their craft.
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage