Teachers, staff to see raises based on School Board’s budget
While the State of Tennessee continues to move slowly when it comes to investment in teacher compensation, local districts are stepping up.
Sumner County is the latest to announce planned pay raises for its teachers and staff.
Sumner County Schools approved an additional $28,950,000 in its budget to increase pay for all of its employees, according to an email sent to parents and the community. The school board has approved the following raises:
– Increasing classified staff pay to a minimum of $16 per hour.
– Increasing new teacher pay to $47,800, an average raise amount of $3,023 for experienced teachers.
The School Board passed the proposal by a 9-1 vote, with the lone dissenting vote noting he hoped to move starting pay up to $50,000 and ask the County Commission for additional funds for raises.
The proposal will now go through the budget approval process at the Sumner County Commission.
Tennessee continues to fail when it comes to school funding
In spite of a new school funding formula AND Gov. Bill Lee’s promise to make Tennessee one of the top places to teach in America, the state continues to lag near the bottom in the nation in both per pupil spending AND teacher salary.
A new report reveals that average teacher pay in the state ranks Tennessee 44th in the nation – and among the lowest in the Southeast. Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia all pay their teachers more than Tennessee does.
National Education Association report on school funding
When it comes to per pupil spending, Tennessee is also in familiar territory: Near the bottom.
National Education Association report on school funding
Of course, Lee and his allies are fond of claiming everything is fine – that they’re doing a great job of funding schools. A few years back, I examined that claim up close and that takedown still applies:
So, the TN House GOP is all excited about spending $616 million plus over TEN years, while the state is sitting on a $3.1 billion surplus this year alone! That means we could spend $616 million in teacher salaries THIS YEAR and still have more than $2.4 billion LEFT to spend. Read that again. Republicans are bragging about taking an entire decade to allocate in total what is available THIS year and could be funded while still leaving $2.4 billion for other priorities.
When it comes to school funding, Tennessee stands at a solid “F” and our policymakers seem to be just fine with that.
Minimum salary moved to $50K, all teachers will see pay increase
Districts across Tennessee are making moves to increase teacher compensation in the face of a growing shortage of applicants and long lists of open positions.
Chalkbeatreports that Memphis-Shelby County will move starting teacher pay to a minimum of $50,000 a year and bump pay for all teachers – raises that could amount to $4000 or more for most teachers.
Memphis-Shelby County Schools is raising its minimum teacher salary to $50,811 under a new agreement with its two teachers unions, delivering on their salary goals despite a $150 million budget shortfall next year.
Teachers, administrators, and board members, meanwhile, cheered the agreement, which raises the district’s starting salary by 8% for teachers with undergraduate degrees and ensures that veteran teachers receive raises once they have hit the top of the district’s 19-step salary scale.
The move comes even as lawmakers rejected providing additional state funds to assist school districts in raising teacher pay.
Lawmakers reject additional investment in teacher pay
Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee rejected a move that would have invested the $140 million+ allocated for Gov. Lee’s voucher scheme into an increase in teacher pay.
“This amendment would take the K-12 education funding set aside for Gov. Lee’s school voucher program and reassign it to the K-12 student funding formula,” said Sen. Lamar. “There are so many needs our public school system has that this voucher money could be used for — one of which being teacher raises.”
The proposal failed on a party-line vote, with all nine Republicans on Senate Finance opposing the move.
State does little to help attract, retain educators
Nashville’s Fox 17 reports that Tennessee is facing a teacher shortage that is growing worse by the year:
The report shows this school year started with more than 1,000 teacher vacancies state-wide, and about 3,000 positions filled by people with an emergency teaching credential. The vacancies are up 16 percent since last school year.
Low pay and poor working conditions are cited as reasons for the exodus from the profession. Likewise, fewer college students are seeking teaching credentials.
I wrote recently about Gov. Bill Lee’s heavy spin around teacher compensation. While Lee claims Tennessee will soon be in the Top 10 in teacher pay, we currently rank in the bottom 7 – and even below Alabama.
“Tennessee teachers are the best in the Southeast, and we have the outcomes and data to back that up, but we are not paid as the best and are behind our peers in neighboring states,” said TEA President Tanya Coats. “Teachers, like other Tennesseans, have been affected by inflation and rising costs in the family budget. State revenues are strong, and we’ve seen record budget surpluses for many years. More can be done to improve the economics of being a professional teacher in our state, and TEA will continue to advocate for professional salaries for our dedicate educators.”
Coats noted that the proposed teacher pay increase will bring Tennessee’s minimum teacher salary to $42,000 a year. She then pointed out that Alabama’s minimum teacher pay is $43,358.
It’s also noteworthy that only 25% of Tennessee teachers earn more than $60,000 a year.
Bill Lee’s rhetoric on teacher pay doesn’t match the policy reality – and teachers are making that clear by leaving the profession.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @tnedreport
Sure, the UT football team claimed a big win over Alabama in football this year. However, teachers in Alabama still earn more than teachers here in Tennessee.
And yes, that’s even AFTER Gov. Bill Lee’s proposed teacher pay raise announced in last night’s State of the State address.
“Tennessee teachers are the best in the Southeast, and we have the outcomes and data to back that up, but we are not paid as the best and are behind our peers in neighboring states,” said TEA President Tanya Coats. “Teachers, like other Tennesseans, have been affected by inflation and rising costs in the family budget. State revenues are strong, and we’ve seen record budget surpluses for many years. More can be done to improve the economics of being a professional teacher in our state, and TEA will continue to advocate for professional salaries for our dedicate educators.”
Coats noted that the proposed teacher pay increase will bring Tennessee’s minimum teacher salary to $42,000 a year. She then pointed out that Alabama’s minimum teacher pay is $43,358.
Yes, that’s right – even with a 4% raise this year, Tennessee teachers will still lag behind neighboring Alabama in teacher pay.
This despite the state facing a significant teacher shortage AND having a surplus in excess of $2 billion.
That’s the impact of inflation on starting teacher pay in Metro Nashville.
Teachers in Nashville have seen significant pay bumps in recent years, but as inflation takes a toll, those increases effectively mean a starting teacher today makes less than a starting teacher did back in 2015.
But when you take into account inflation and run the 2015 and 2022 salaries through the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator, $42,082 has the same buying power as $52,242 now.
Therefore, a new teacher is making $4,121 less now compared to what they would’ve made in 2015.
That’s a number that hits particularly hard in one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities – where housing costs have been steadily on the rise.
As Mintzer notes:
There are more than 120 teacher positions still open as of a couple of weeks ago in Metro Nashville Public Schools, according to a spokesperson for the district.
Despite all the rhetoric from Tennessee policymakers about funds for schools and teacher salaries, Tennessee teachers continue to experience a “wage gap.” That is, teachers in Tennessee earn nearly 24% less than similarly educated peers.
The Economic Policy Institute has once again published its analysis of teacher pay relative to the pay of similar professionals and found that at a national level, the wage gap is 23.5%. In Tennessee, that gap is 23.8%. As EPI notes, in 28 states, the gap is greater than 20%. Yes, even when you add the benefits package (typically more generous than in other jobs), the penalty is still well above 10%.
What does this mean, though?
Well, all those stories about a teacher shortage start to make sense. Whether there are more actual vacancies this year than in years past (as seems to be the case in some districts), the issue is being talked about more seriously this year.
The numbers from EPI indicate that the value proposition for teachers just isn’t that great. Combine that with heated political rhetoric about “groomer teachers” and book banning, and you may begin to understand why there aren’t as many qualified educators available and eager to fill all the vacancies.
Here’s more from EPI on how they conducted the study:
First, we use Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Groups (CPS-ORG) data for the wage analyses. We focus on weekly wages, which avoids comparisons of weekly hours worked or length of the work year (i.e., the “summers off” issue for teachers) between teachers and other college graduates.3 The sample is restricted to full-time workers (working at least 35 hours per week), 18 to 64 years old, with at least a bachelor’s degree. The education restriction is made because teachers today need at least a bachelor’s degree to teach. The sample is further limited to those who reported their wage information directly (i.e., nonresponders whose wage data was imputed by BLS are excluded).
Trends Over Time
In 1979, teachers earned $1,052 per week (in 2021 dollars), which is 22.9% less than the $1,364 earned by other college graduates. The difference in wages between teachers and other college graduates decreased slightly into the mid-1990s, falling to 15.7% in 1996, but then increased considerably during the tight labor markets of the late 1990s into the early 2000s. The wages of nonteacher college graduates jumped by 13.5% from 1996 to 2002 during an unusual time of exceptional wage growth among low-, middle-, and high-wage earners. But inflation-adjusted wages of teachers did not grow strongly during this period, in part because teacher pay is often set by long-term contracts, and public-sector wages are not as volatile (they do not rise and fall as much) as private-sector wages. Teacher weekly wages remained flat in inflation-adjusted terms from 1996 to 2002, increasing just 0.3%, leaving the real average weekly wage of teachers 25.5% less than their college graduate counterparts.
This difference remained fairly consistent, with some ups and downs, throughout the 2000s. But, a significant widening of the wage gap has occurred since 2010 as teacher wages remained relatively flat while wages of other college graduates took off. The difference increased by 7.6 percentage points between 2010 and 2021—leaving the average weekly wages of teachers 32.9% behind that of other college graduates by 2021, the largest difference recorded in our series.
Now, though, we’re still looking at wage gaps of around 24% – in part due to a tight labor market in other professions increasing overall salaries. Of course, available federal stimulus funds and states with budget surpluses have meant some increases in teacher compensation – still, it is not enough to achieve anything like parity with other professions.
As EPI notes:
Generally, the teacher wage penalty has been on a worsening trajectory since the mid-1990s. A slight shrinking of the gap in 2019 was short lived. It widened again in 2020, to 21.6%, and in 2021, the penalty reached a record 23.5%. That means that, on average, teachers earned just 76.5 cents on the dollar compared with what similar college graduates earned working in other professions—and much less than the relative 93.9 cents on the dollar that teachers earned in 1996.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
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While the Dickson County School Board has submitted a proposed budget featuring $1500 raises for teachers, at least one County Commissioner has floated the idea of $5000 raises – at an additional cost of $3.5 million in a $70 million budget.
Dickson County teachers are already getting a $1,500 raise in the proposed school district budget, which was presented by Schools Director Dr. Danny Weeks in budget committee meetings this month.
During the review, County Commissioner Jeff Eby suggested moving the teacher raises to $5000.
Eby then suggested $5,000 raises for all teachers, which he estimated to cost about $3.5 million.
It was pointed out the County Commission cannot make line-item adjustments to the school system’s budget. They can, however, send the budget back to the School Board with suggested revisions.
Mayor Bob Rial said the budget increase for a $5,000 raise would equate to a 25-cent property tax increase in Dickson County.
The move in Dickson County comes during budget season and at a time when other middle Tennessee districts are raising teacher pay.
Memphis-Shelby County Schools has a new budget proposal that offers teachers a 2% raise plus a $1500 retention bonus.
While this sounds nice – it IS more money, it really begs the question: Is that all?
Chalkbeat has more on the details of the nearly $2 billion budget proposal:
Memphis-Shelby County Schools teachers would receive a 2% pay raise and $1,500 retention bonuses as part of the $1.93 billion proposed budget approved by school board members Tuesday.
Fulfilling Superintendent Joris Ray’s promises earlier this year to invest in educators, the 2022-23 budget would also funnel nearly $12 million into educators’ tiered pay scale and add a new step on the scale for principals.
The budget, passed on a 5-0 vote, also directs $3.5 million to bump up the district’s contribution to employee health insurance premiums to 70% from 66%, and $3 million to raises for substitute teachers.
While a 2% raise and a $1500 salary increase are nice moves, that’s simply not enough.
It’s unfortunate that Bill Lee’s TISA plan and current funding scheme aren’t dedicating more to public schools We currently have a surplus in excess of $3 billion at the state level and yet still struggle to fund public schools.
It’s a matter of priorities.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
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