Will Salary Increases Solve the Teacher Shortages? - The Atlantic

Will Salary Increases Solve the Teacher Shortages? - The Atlantic:

What If America’s Teachers Made More Money?

A number of states want to raise their salaries, but it’s unclear whether the increases will do much to solve schools’ staffing problems.

Tia Martin, a long-term substitute teacher, leads a third-grade class at an elementary school in Nevada, one of many states struggling with teacher shortages.John Locher / AP

As districts in certain parts of the country battle staffing shortages and schools nationwide seek to overcome a general sense of dissatisfaction among faculty, several states are considering proposals to pay their public-school teachers more money. The average public-school teacher salary in the United States in the 2012-13 academic year was $56,000, versus roughly $69,000 for nurses and$83,000 for programmers. Experts say raising that threshold could help improvethe profession’s lackluster reputation and encourage more high-achieving college students to pursue the career—especially in less-than-desirable schools and districts. The ultimate goal, of course, is to improve the quality of kids’ education: A recent report from the OECD found that students are more likely to be low-performers if they attend schools that struggle with shortages and low teacher morale.

In Oklahoma, Governor Mary Fallin’s proposed budget would allocate $178 million in new money to support a $3,000 raise for every teacher in the state, where teachers earned about $44,000 on average in 2012. “In this unprecedented teacher shortage, it is absolutely critical that we as a state address teacher compensation and give teachers a stronger reason to stay in Oklahoma classrooms,” state schools Superintendent Joy Hofmeister was quoted as sayingin response to the plan. In South Dakota, home to the country’s lowest teacher salaries, Governor Dennis Daugaard wants to raise the sales tax by half a cent in an effort to increase teacher pay to $48,500. Tennessee and New Mexico are considering similar proposals, and a controversial bill is making its way throughIndiana’s legislature that would in part allow teachers to negotiate extra pay.

There’s a chance these plans will see results: A number of studies—including one on a program in North Carolina that offered a bonus of $1,800 to only math, science, and special-education teachers working in struggling public schools—have shown that modest salary increases can help stem turnover. But it’s hard to say whether such proposals will ultimately have long-lasting impact on the general teacher shortage. Surveys suggest that although teachers’ job satisfactionhas declined significantly in recent years, their perceptions about pay have hardly changed; factors beyond money contribute to the recruitment-and-turnover problems.

In places already struggling with shortages and those resorting to mass emergency certifications, the challenge is finding new teachers who are qualified, competent, and dedicated to the profession. Achieving this goal, researchers say, is complicated—something that a few extra hundred, or even thousand, dollars alone won’t solve. “If you want to improve the pipeline of new teachers, you have to start early,” said Sean Corcoran, an associate professor of educational Will Salary Increases Solve the Teacher Shortages? - The Atlantic: