tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/teacher-pay-10034/articlesTeacher pay – The Conversation2023-12-12T16:13:13Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2169442023-12-12T16:13:13Z2023-12-12T16:13:13ZMinimum service levels for teachers: government plan to restrict strikes further undermines a profession in crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564240/original/file-20231207-17-8t27e4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C155%2C5168%2C3290&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/stressed-science-teacher-trying-grade-homework-1586693281">Juice Flair/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As an academic, I teach teachers. The promise of teacher education is that graduates will enter a challenging but meaningful job. Personal, professional and financial security should be the safe ground from which they can navigate this diffucult terrain. </p>
<p>But I see my students’ anxiety about the complex issues they are set to encounter in the classroom, as well as insufficient pay and funding.
Qualified teachers are leaving in large numbers as they find the workload overwhelming, and the pay lagging behind inflation.</p>
<p>Disputes over pay have <a href="https://theconversation.com/teachers-go-on-strike-the-challenges-facing-the-schools-sector-198944">led to teachers striking</a> – but workload has also been a contributing factor. </p>
<p>Now, the UK government plans to introduce <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/teachers-strike-gillian-keegan-minium-service-levels-b2454799.html">minimum service levels (MSLs)</a> for striking teachers. A consultation on the plan has been launched, with the aim of MSLs being in place for the <a href="https://twitter.com/GillianKeegan/status/1729465713960591696">next academic year</a>. </p>
<p>MSLs jeopardise public sector workers’ freedom to undertake full industrial action, by obliging them to still provide a minimum “service” to the public. <a href="https://schoolsweek.co.uk/minimum-service-level-proposals-everything-schools-need-to-know/">This means schools</a> could issue <a href="https://consult.education.gov.uk/industrial-action/minimum-service-levels-mls-in-education/supporting_documents/Minimum%20service%20levels%20in%20education%20consultation%20document.pdf">“work notices”</a> to require specific staff members to work during a strike period. </p>
<p>Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, has <a href="https://neu.org.uk/latest/press-releases/minimum-service-levels-talks-ended">called the move</a> “shameful”. It adds fuel to the historical flames of teacher discontent. It also further complicates the historically ambivalent position of teachers toward striking. </p>
<p>On the one hand, an unconditional, unrequited labour of love is exacted and extracted from teachers. If they place their workers’ rights first they are seen as <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/01/selfish-teachers-owe-children-apology/">selfish and harming students</a>. As with workers in other care-intensive – and often female-dominated – sectors, such as healthcare and social work, teachers’ demands for recognition and remuneration are downplayed by politicians and the public. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the productive work in all other sectors of the economy relies on teachers. By keeping children at school, they not only educate the future workforce, but also enable parents to engage fully in the present-day one.</p>
<h2>History of teaching unions</h2>
<p>In the nineteenth century, a formerly private and often clerical male profession became massively practised by women. Teaching became a vital part of the modern nation state’s effort to build society-wide institutions – but teachers had lower income and living standards than other educated professionals. This and their origin from and work among peasant and workers’ communities made unions a <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/12424649.pdf">logical form of self-organising</a>. </p>
<p>By the mid-20th century, UK teachers’ <a href="https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/100-years-unions">unions had gained important concessions</a> when it came to pay, benefits and recognition across the profession. Yet especially since 1980, strikes have been crushed and unions weakened through <a href="https://www.ier.org.uk/a-chronology-of-labour-law-1979-2023/">draconian anti-labour laws</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-consecutive-conservative-governments-destroyed-union-rights-a-timeline-of-the-uks-anti-strike-laws-since-the-1970s-198178">A sequence of laws</a> have further limited the definition of “lawful” industrial action and curtailed workers’ right to spontaneous collective organising. A high threshold to ballot for strikes was made mandatory, meaning that striking is lawful only upon a positive membership vote with a large turnout. The laws also prohibit solidarity action across sectors or among people working for different employers. </p>
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<p>Now, minimum service levels will further restrict teachers’ ability to use strikes to campaign for better pay and working conditions – at a time when the profession is facing serious challenges. </p>
<h2>Crisis in teaching</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nasuwt.org.uk/article-listing/teachers-know-reality-of-cost-of-living-crisis.html">cost of living crisis</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35935868">intensification of workloads</a>, and <a href="https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/news/quarter-of-teachers-in-england-report-60-hour-working-week">extended working hours</a> have compromised the real pay and purchasing power behind teachers’ salaries, and their material working conditions.</p>
<p>The teaching profession also faces challenges that other “caring” professions encounter. New societal challenges and a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/aug/15/number-children-mental-health-crisis-record-high-england">growing mental health epidemic among children</a> require new skills and approaches. But funding and time for <a href="https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/the-cost-of-high-quality-professional-developmentfor-teachers/">professional development</a> is <a href="https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/scottish-government-cuts-funding-masters-level-cpd">scarce</a>. </p>
<p>The profession is also ever more stratified between those employed on secure well-paid contracts, and supply teachers on short-term fixed duration contracts with little personal or workplace stability. Teachers’ unions now attempt to accommodate workers from across an increasingly stratified and fragmented professional field. Conflicting workers’ interests are easy targets for divide-and-rule tactics.</p>
<p>Mechanisms like MSLs can only go so far to hold back a flood of discontent. Decent pay and better funding for schools is imperative – rather than attempts to discredit teachers’ strikes as harming students. To give milk and honey, teachers need bread and butter.</p>
<p>The global pandemic lockdowns reminded us of the extent to which teachers’ work is crucial, not only for children to thrive, but also for our economic stability. Teachers form the backbone of productive work and of invisible emotional labour. </p>
<p>But despite their own financial and personal struggles, teachers are being pressured to become shock absorbers of a financial crisis and a <a href="https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/03/schools-just-want-to-have-funds">mental health epidemic</a> not adequately addressed by crumbling and acutely underfunded welfare services.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mariya Ivancheva does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Productive work in all other sectors of the economy relies on teachers.Mariya Ivancheva, Senior Lecturer, Strathclyde Institute of Education, University of Strathclyde Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2139622023-11-02T12:32:47Z2023-11-02T12:32:47ZTexas tried to fix its teacher shortage by lowering requirements − the result was more new teachers, but at lower salaries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553564/original/file-20231012-21-h6g17p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C288%2C5052%2C2592&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New research found that a 2001 Texas policy has reduced teachers' wages. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/photo/black-teacher-talking-to-students-in-class-room-royalty-free-image/166346277?phrase=teacher%2Bin%2Bhigh%2Bschool%2Bclassroom">Jon Feingersh Photography Inc/DigitalVision via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Facing persistent teacher shortages, Texas in 2001 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.101">reduced its student teaching requirements</a> for alternative licensure programs. Our study found that these reduced teacher licensure requirements also led to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584231159900">reduced wages for all new elementary school teachers</a> over the next 20 years.</p>
<p>Previously, a new teacher license was obtained through university training and a series of standardized tests. The license signaled that an individual had undergone a specific kind of training and therefore that person’s skills were valued at a certain level by employers. Research has found that licensed professions <a href="https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.14.4.189">typically restrict</a> the number of new entrants, which maintains higher wages for their members and provides incentives for continual professional development.</p>
<p>When Texas reduced its requirements for new teachers in 2001, it helped launch a host of new alternative teacher training programs offered by providers including online companies, for-profit colleges, universities and public school systems. Therefore, candidates seeking teacher licensure could do so faster and more easily than through traditional, university-based pathways.
A decade later, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584231159900">161 separate programs</a> were licensing teachers – nearly twice as many as the 88 programs that did so in 2000. By 2007, more than half of the state’s new teachers – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584231159900">14,595</a> – were licensed through alternative pathways rather than traditional pathways.</p>
<p>In education, the theory holds that when teachers are required to take <a href="https://econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:27:y:2008:i:5:p:483-503">licensure exams</a>, and barriers to entry are raised, it results in fewer new teachers and higher wages. Our study found that when teacher licenses were less rigorous and easier to obtain, it resulted in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584231159900">more new teachers, but also lower wages for those teachers</a>. Our study was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584231159900">published in AERA Open</a>, a publication of the American Educational Research Association.</p>
<p>Our study examines the base pay – adjusted for inflation – from 2000-2015 for 786,724 new teachers in approximately 1,282 districts in Texas. We found that controlling for changes in district demographics over time, after licensure requirements were relaxed, the average pay for new teachers declined annually by 2% to 13%.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Texas has had <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/pol/bteachershortageareasreport201718.pdf">persistent teacher shortages</a> despite the 2001 policy change, which was designed to fill open positions. The official state list of teacher shortage areas in Texas – mathematics, science, special education – did not change from 1990 to 2018.</p>
<p>This indicates that the policy that lowered requirements for alternatively certified teachers did not successfully address those teacher shortages. Texas has begun to <a href="https://tea.texas.gov/texas-educators/certification/educator-testing/pre-admission-content-test">restore some requirements to get into the teaching profession</a>, such as higher GPAs and passing scores on teacher licensure exams. However, the state remains focused on producing new teachers rather than retaining the existing ones in an effort to staff schools.</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>As the U.S. struggles nationwide to fill <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/school-districts-nationwide-struggling-to-fill-teaching-positions/#:%7E:text=According%20to%20a%20recent%20survey,schools%20report%20feeling%20generally%20understaffed.">vacant teaching positions</a> – not just in elementary school but throughout K-12 systems – our study invites states to examine whether expanding licensure programs as a singular strategy is an effective strategy to fill teacher shortages.</p>
<p>Policies that aim to increase the supply of teachers may have the unintended consequence of lowering teacher pay. This may perpetuate cycles of teacher shortages and turnover. Rapidly expanding the supply of new teachers may devalue each license and lower wages.</p>
<p>Districts may, in turn, be trapped into successive rounds of hiring teacher replacements and offering lower salaries. The focus on producing more teachers quickly and cheaply, rather than retaining those in the field, may result in outcomes that are detrimental to the profession’s health.</p>
<p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take on interesting academic work.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213962/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Guthery works for the University of Oklahoma and her work has been previously supported by Texas A&M University- Commerce. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lauren P. Bailes works for the University of Delaware, which has funded some of her research. She has also received funding from the Spencer Foundation. </span></em></p>Researchers found that lowering restrictions for new teachers had some unintended consequences.Sarah Guthery, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies, University of OklahomaLauren P. Bailes, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, University of DelawareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2150212023-10-05T16:30:43Z2023-10-05T16:30:43ZAdvanced British Standard: A-level replacement will require more teachers – but bonuses may not be the way to get them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552340/original/file-20231005-23-k0ujdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C12%2C8509%2C5008&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-young-teacher-helping-student-during-1102460816">Jacob Lund/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced a new qualification to replace A-levels and T-levels. The planned <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/651d3c116a6955000d78b292/A_world-class_education_system_-_The_Advanced_British_Standard__print_ready_.pdf">Advanced British Standard</a> (ABS) will also come with more teaching time for students: an extra 195 hours over two years. </p>
<p>But there’s a problem. More teaching hours means more teachers – and the Department for Education <a href="https://theconversation.com/teachers-are-quitting-heres-what-could-be-done-to-get-them-to-stay-202654">is already struggling</a> to recruit new teachers and to keep current teachers in the profession.</p>
<p>Since 2010, experienced teachers in England have experienced a real terms reduction in salaries of <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/articles/what-has-happened-teacher-pay-england">up to 13%</a>. During the same period, average earnings across all sectors in Britain have increased by 2.5% in <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/averageweeklyearningsearn01">real terms</a>. This decline in the relative attractiveness of the teaching profession has had <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/120414/pdf/">serious implications</a> for teacher recruitment, retention and diversity.</p>
<p>With these challenges in mind, Sunak also <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-qualifications-to-deliver-world-class-education-for-all">announced</a> a tax-free bonus of up to £30,000 over the first five years of teachers’ careers in subjects with a particular teacher shortage. </p>
<p>This is a welcome boost – but does not go far enough. It risks alienating experienced teachers and does not address the factors that drive teachers’ decision to leave the profession.</p>
<h2>Undervaluing experienced teachers</h2>
<p>One issue with Sunak’s approach is that starting salaries are already competitive. It is the growth (or lack of growth) in teachers’ pay over their careers which causes their pay to fall behind comparable professions. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/files/misoc/reports/explainers/Does-it-pay-to-be-a-teacher.pdf">research suggests</a> that roughly three in ten teachers would be financially better off if they left teaching for another career. The announced bonus scheme isn’t going to substantively change this, but it will contribute to more experienced teachers feeling undervalued and underappreciated.</p>
<p>Experienced teachers are earning less than comparable professions, but they are also now facing a related pay cut compared with newer entrants. To many teachers, this will not seem fair. After all, it could be argued that it is the teachers who have remained committed to the profession who most deserve to be rewarded, not the new entrants.</p>
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<p>Using financial incentives to recruit maths and physics teachers intuitively makes sense – these graduates generally have high-paying alternative career options. But this year, the government has also <a href="https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/initial-teacher-training-census">missed targets</a> for subjects where graduates typically don’t have as financially strong alternative employment opportunities – such as modern foreign languages, English, and art and design. This suggests the challenges with recruitment and retention are not just about the money.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/teacher-recruitment-target-missed-in-england-why-people-dont-want-to-enter-or-stay-in-the-profession-196175">Teacher recruitment target missed in England – why people don't want to enter or stay in the profession</a>
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<p>Given the real difference that teachers make in their pupils’ lives, it is no surprise that teachers, historically, report <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2020/oct/teachers-among-happiest-professionals">higher wellbeing</a> than comparable professions. What’s more, teachers who leave the profession generally report no change, or even a decline, in <a href="https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/berj.3680?af=R">their wellbeing</a>. </p>
<p>However, since the pandemic, teacher wellbeing is lower than <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1148571/Working_lives_of_teachers_and_leaders_-_wave_1_-_core_report.pdf">comparable professions</a>. While the decline in pay is certainly contributing to this, other factors such as working hours, school leaders, Ofsted inspections and pupil behaviour have also played an important role. </p>
<p><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4384928">My research</a> exploring the reasons why teachers leave the profession, published in a working paper for the Institute for Social and Economic Research and reviewed by colleagues, finds that reducing teacher working hours and improving the quality of school leaders would be the most effective strategies.</p>
<p>Only teachers in Japan have <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7222/">higher workloads</a> than primary teachers in England across the OECD group of countries. Over <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7222/">half of teachers</a> feel their workload is unmanageable. This is one of the key reasons why people leave teaching. I found that reducing working hours by five hours per week would be as effective in improving teacher retention as a 10% pay rise. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/651d3c116a6955000d78b292/A_world-class_education_system_-_The_Advanced_British_Standard__print_ready_.pdf">government’s proposal document</a> for the ABS states that teachers’ weekly workloads have already been reduced by five hours. But this data is from a 2019 survey. It does not consider how the pandemic may have <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2023/jul/high-work-intensity-makes-teachers-jobs-more-demanding-post-pandemic">worsened teachers’ job quality</a>, in particular compared with other professions. </p>
<p>In September 2023, the government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/workload-reduction-taskforce">announced a taskforce</a> to reduce teacher working hours by a further five hours weekly. It remains to be seen what the measures proposed by this taskforce will be. </p>
<p>While any additional pay for teachers is welcome, Sunak’s approach reinforces the fact that current pay scales do not reward experience, which could create problems with the retention of more experienced teachers. In addition, the failure to address other important issues suggests this might be a short-term political gimmick, rather than a meaningful, teacher-led effort to improve the school workforce.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215021/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Fullard is affiliated with the Research Centre on Micro-Social Change, University of Essex. He has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p>Bonuses for new teachers won’t fix the reasons people leave the profession.Joshua Fullard, Assistant Professor of Behavioural Science, Warwick Business School, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1996872023-02-15T13:25:36Z2023-02-15T13:25:36ZIs it time for teachers to get a raise?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509846/original/file-20230213-409-aiabw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C68%2C5081%2C3326&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Data shows teacher pay never exceeds that of other college graduates.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teacher-helping-student-with-school-work-royalty-free-image/104737311?phrase=teachers&adppopup=true">Blend Images - LWA/Dann Tardif via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In his <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/02/07/remarks-of-president-joe-biden-state-of-the-union-address-as-prepared-for-delivery/">2023 State of the Union address</a>, President Joe Biden <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2023/02/07/biden-calls-universal-pre-kindergarten-teacher-raises-in-state-of-the-union/">called for public school teachers to get a raise</a> but offered no specifics on how that could be done. Here, <a href="https://education.wayne.edu/profile/aa0901">Michael Addonizio</a>, an education policy expert at Wayne State University, provides insight on the current state of teacher salaries, whether a collective raise is in order and how one might be achieved.</em></p>
<h2>1. Do teachers really need a raise?</h2>
<p>In many school districts, the answer is: Yes. </p>
<p>According to a 2022 study from the Economic Policy Institute – a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that addresses low- and middle-income workers’ needs – the teacher “wage penalty” - that is, how much less teachers make than comparable workers - <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-penalty-2022/">grew from 6.1% in 1996 to 23.5% in 2021</a>. Put another way, the average weekly wages of public school teachers – adjusted for inflation – increased just US$29 from 1996 to 2021, from $1,319 to $1,348 in 2021 dollars. Meanwhile, inflation-adjusted weekly wages of other college graduates rose $445, from $1,564 to $2,009, over the same period.</p>
<p>Teacher <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-penalty-2022/">wage gaps vary widely</a> from state to state, but in no state does teacher pay equal or exceed pay for other college graduates.</p>
<p>Adding benefits to the analysis does not change the picture. Although teachers generally receive a higher share of their compensation as benefits than other professionals do – usually health insurance and retirement plans – this difference does not offset the teachers’ growing wage penalty. Teachers’ “total compensation” penalty reached 14.2% in 2021. This is a 23.5% wage penalty offset by a 9.3% benefits advantage. This total compensation penalty for teachers grew by 11.5 percentage points from 1993 to 2021, according to the Economic Policy Institute analysis.</p>
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<h2>2. Where do teacher raises typically come from?</h2>
<p>Public school teacher salaries are generally set by local school districts. Districts establish salary schedules where teacher base pay is determined by years of teaching experience and education credentials or graduate credit hours. Contracts are negotiated at the district level, so that teachers in different schools within a district are covered by the same salary schedule.</p>
<p>These schedules, sometimes referred to as “step-and-lane” systems, can vary substantially from district to district. District contracts may differ in the annual pay increases for experience or the relative importance given to experience versus credentials. Contracts may give larger annual pay hikes to less experienced teachers than to veteran teachers, or the reverse may be true.</p>
<p>Where does the money come from? Fully 93% of school districts’ operating revenue comes from <a href="https://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/how-is-k-12-education-funded">state and local sources</a>. <a href="https://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/how-is-k-12-education-funded">Nationally</a>, on average, states provide 47% and local districts provide 46%.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncsl.org/news/details/states-jump-start-efforts-to-boost-teacher-pay">Rising concern over low teacher salaries</a> has prompted many states to pass appropriations to boost local salary schedules across the board. In 2021, <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/news/details/states-jump-start-efforts-to-boost-teacher-pay">25 states</a> enacted or introduced legislation to raise teacher pay. Ten of those states have <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/news/details/states-jump-start-efforts-to-boost-teacher-pay">statewide teacher salary schedules</a>, while eight have minimum teacher salary requirements.</p>
<p>Among the states with statewide salary schedules, state initiatives raised pay and expanded eligibility for bonuses. In states with minimum salary requirements, lawmakers sought to raise these minimums and provide incentives for districts to hike salaries across the board. Elsewhere, state efforts focused on general salary increases for teachers.</p>
<p>However, despite these state efforts, teacher salaries continue to lag well behind other professional salaries in many states.</p>
<h2>3. Can federal funds be used?</h2>
<p>No, not as a long-term solution to the problem of low teacher pay. Federal funds are too limited in amount and there’s not enough flexibility to finance general pay raises for teachers.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/how-is-k-12-education-funded">federal government provides about 7%</a> of K-12 revenue, and the money is designated for specific programs. In general, these funds are intended to supplement funding for schools with at-risk youth, including children with learning disabilities or children from low-income households. </p>
<p>During recent economic downturns – the Great Recession of 2008 and the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown – the federal government provided K-12 schools with emergency aid to supplement diminished state and local revenue. The COVID relief was exceptionally substantial, with the <a href="https://www.future-ed.org/with-an-influx-of-covid-relief-funds-states-spend-on-schools/">American Rescue Plan </a> providing school districts with $190 billion.</p>
<p>This federal aid, however, while unprecedented in amount, has two key limitations: it is one-time aid and not all districts share in it. Districts that do receive these funds must be careful not to make them part of their annual operating budgets without solid plans for state or local replacement funds. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.future-ed.org/educators-and-esser-how-pandemic-spending-in-reshaping-the-teaching-profession/?mc_cid=077b478eb5&mc_eid=494ed74b95">Many districts have revealed plans</a> to use these federal funds to hire new teachers or to pay teachers bonuses for extra work in an effort to mitigate COVID-related learning loss. Paying bonuses to current teachers would avoid the need to lay off teachers when the emergency aid runs out.</p>
<p>In addition, a revised <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/9566?s=1&r=1">American Teacher Act</a> has been introduced in Congress. The bill would establish a four-year grant program for states to encourage local districts to raise base teacher salaries. The bulk of these funds would go to districts with teacher salaries below $60,000.</p>
<p>The bill would award grants to states that enact and enforce laws establishing a statewide minimum teacher salary requirement of $60,000. Details continue to be worked out, including refining the definition of a “teacher” to avoid paying unqualified staff with federal funds. The bill would address a pressing problem, but state participation would be voluntary and the program would expire in four years. And passage is uncertain. </p>
<p>To achieve lasting teacher pay hikes, it’s going to have to take place in state capitols and local school boards.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199687/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Addonizio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Teacher wages have risen little over the past few decades when adjusted for inflation.Michael Addonizio, Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1989442023-02-02T15:36:48Z2023-02-02T15:36:48ZTeachers go on strike: the challenges facing the schools sector<p>On February 1 2023, teachers in England and Wales joined their Scottish counterparts by going on strike, resulting in widespread school closures. Teachers made up part of an estimated <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/31/up-to-half-a-million-to-strike-across-uk-as-talks-go-backwards">half a million workers on strike</a> across the UK. They are striking for improved <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/when-are-the-teachers-strikes-why-are-they-striking-and-how-is-your-child-affected-12788528">pay and working conditions</a>. </p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/12/20/nurses-and-ambulance-workers-have-most-public-supp">polling</a> by YouGov suggests that about half of the British public support striking teachers and a significant number (44%) blame the government for the strike, rather than the teachers or unions themselves. Only nurses, ambulance staff and firefighters enjoy more public support for their action. </p>
<p>Teachers are, of course, aware of the effect of the action on children and their education. To minimise disruption, no school will be <a href="https://neu.org.uk/press-releases/neu-take-strike-action-over-pay">closed for more than four days in England</a>, but longstanding issues in the profession have now reached a critical point.</p>
<p>Gillian Keegan is the fifth secretary of state for education in the last 12 months. In recent days she has made it clear that she is <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/national-education-union-mary-bousted-clashes-education-secretary-gillian-keegan-teachers-talks-b1057143.html">talking to the teachers’ representatives</a>, but she continues to face significant challenges in ensuring that the education system is meeting pupils’ needs. </p>
<h2>Pay and workload</h2>
<p>A headline issue for <a href="https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/teacher-strike-has-teacher-pay-increased-inflation-and-how-does-it-compare-internationally">the strikes is pay</a>. Despite pay rises for teachers in the 2022-23 academic year, these do not meet the current rate of inflation. But pay is only one of the problems for the school sector. </p>
<p>Continuing challenges in <a href="https://theconversation.com/teacher-recruitment-target-missed-in-england-why-people-dont-want-to-enter-or-stay-in-the-profession-196175">recruitment and retention</a> are particularly important. In their first two years after qualifying, 17% of teachers <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7222/CBP-7222.pdf">leave the profession</a>. And the government is unable to recruit enough new teachers to replace them. </p>
<p>There are <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7222/CBP-7222.pdf">serious shortages</a> in recruitment for some key secondary school subjects. In the academic year 2022-23, recruitment for computing teachers was 70% under target. For physics teachers, it was 83% under target. There is an overall picture of under-recruitment across the sector.</p>
<p>Another problem facing the minister is teachers’ workload. A <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/919065/TALIS_2018_research_brief.pdf">pre-pandemic survey</a> in England found that secondary teachers working with children aged 11-14 were reporting a working week of, on average, nearly 50 hours. Full-time primary teachers were working over 52 hours a week. </p>
<p>Over half of teachers felt their workload was unmanageable. There is no doubt that the working conditions for teachers must be addressed to improve teacher retention and prevent further attrition. </p>
<h2>Feeling the effects of lockdown</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, the failure of the government’s post-school closures <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmeduc/940/summary.htm">catch up programme</a> is <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/9251/documents/160043/default/">well-documented</a>. <a href="https://theconversation.com/children-lost-one-third-of-a-years-learning-to-covid-new-study-shows-but-we-need-to-think-about-the-problem-differently-198648">The effect of the pandemic school closures</a> and remote learning are still being felt by children. As a result gaps in attainment persist, especially for children already at risk of disadvantage. This puts further pressure on teachers.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-governments-academic-catch-up-strategy-is-failing-children-in-england-179227">The government's academic catch-up strategy is failing children in England</a>
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<p>In addition, the long-term impact of the pandemic is <a href="https://www.youngminds.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/press-releases/school-staff-warn-of-the-extensive-impact-of-covid-19-pandemic-on-young-people-s-mental-health/">still felt in schools</a>: with mental health services remaining stretched, many teachers are faced with additional challenges in pastoral care. Recently, <a href="https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/about-us/news/government-must-deliver-mental-health-plan-say-mental-health-charities">charities called on the government</a> to develop a comprehensive mental healthcare plan, including for children. </p>
<p>Some parents may regard the strikes as disruptive. This action comes as many pupils’ learning and wellbeing remains affected by COVID, so some will question whether teachers are right to strike now. However, teachers argue that they are taking action to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/30/every-year-more-is-asked-teachers-in-england-on-why-they-are-striking">protect vital public services</a> rather than to threaten them. </p>
<p>Undoubtedly, teachers in our schools face significant challenges to meet the educational and pastoral needs of children and young people. Yet the success of our educational system has never been more important as we recover from the economic and social shocks of the last few years. </p>
<p>To produce a generation of young people with the skills, knowledge and ability to meet the needs of the country, the minister for education will need to be able to create the conditions under which teachers can be trained, recruited and retained in the profession.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helena Gillespie receives funding from the European Union and has previously been funded by Wellcome, AdvanceHE and HEFCE. </span></em></p>Teachers find their workloads difficult to manage – and the government is struggling to recruit people to the sector.Helena Gillespie, Associate Pro Vice Chancellor for Student Inclusion and Professor of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1907242022-09-20T12:37:56Z2022-09-20T12:37:56ZStressed out, burned out and dropping out: Why teachers are leaving the classroom<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484697/original/file-20220914-11733-ybu2z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5114%2C3412&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">High teacher turnover hurts students and negatively affects learning.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/asian-teacher-teaching-math-to-students-in-royalty-free-image/135205438?adppopup=true">Ariel Skelley/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Many school districts across the United States are in the midst of a crisis: a teacher shortage. Part of the problem is due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but there are other reasons why teachers are leaving their jobs at higher rates than before. On Aug. 29, 2022, <a href="https://www.sciline.org/social-sciences/teacher-turnover/">SciLine</a> interviewed <a href="https://tuan-d-nguyen.github.io/home">Tuan Nguyen</a>, an assistant professor in the College of Education at Kansas State University, about why teachers are quitting and what can be done to slow or stop the trend.</em></p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Tuan Nguyen talks to SciLine about teacher burnout.</span></figcaption>
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<p><em>Below are some highlights from the discussion. Please note that answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.</em> </p>
<p><strong>Can you share some data on typical rates of teacher turnover?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Tuan Nguyen:</strong> Before the pandemic, about 15%, 16% of teachers turn over every year. About half of that is teachers switching from one school to another, and then the other half, about 7%, 8%, is teachers leaving the profession every year. </p>
<p><strong>What is known about why teachers leave their jobs?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Tuan Nguyen:</strong> Generally, there are three main buckets, or categories, as to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2020.100355">why teachers leave their jobs</a> for other schools or leave the profession. </p>
<p>One is what’s known as the personal factors … things related to the teachers, their characteristics, such as their age, race, ethnicity and gender, their qualifications. </p>
<p>Another bucket is related to schools, such as … school characteristics and school resources, working conditions. </p>
<p>And the last area is known as external factors. These are things that are happening at the national or state level that are somewhat beyond the school control. We think about NCLB – <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/12/08/458844737/no-child-left-behind-an-obituary">No Child Left Behind</a>. </p>
<p><strong>How does teacher turnover affect student learning?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Tuan Nguyen:</strong> We know that teachers are the most critical factor of student learning, and that when we have high teacher turnover, that is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858420905812">detrimental to student learning</a>. </p>
<p>What you have here is the loss of teaching knowledge and expertise. Districts also have to spend additional resources in order to recruit and train new teachers … usually a novice teacher or a teacher who is underqualified. And we know from research that underqualified teachers and novice teachers are <a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/why-teachers-leave-or-dont-a-look-at-the-numbers/2021/05">more likely to leave the profession</a>. </p>
<p>So then what you get is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2021.102079">this cycle of churn</a>, where you have teachers leaving, replaced with new or underqualified teachers, who themselves are more likely to leave. And that leads to more turnover next year.</p>
<p><strong>What makes teachers likelier to stay in their jobs?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Tuan Nguyen:</strong> There are many things that we can actually do to help teachers stay where they are.</p>
<p>One is <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/teachers-paid-covid-retention-bonuses-staff-shortages-covid-19-pandemic-1666872">retention bonuses</a>, so that if they stay for one or two years, then they get an additional bonus on top of their salary. </p>
<p>Many teachers <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_211.60.asp">are not paid very well</a>. They have to moonlight. They have to have a second or a third job. And now they’re asked to <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2022/08/25/inflation-means-teachers-who-buy-their-own-supplies-have-to-spend-more-or-ask-for-help/">buy equipment and resources from their own pocket</a> in order to do that job. That doesn’t really incentivize teachers to stay. </p>
<p><strong>Is there any research on how the pandemic – including health risks, the switch to remote learning and new pressures from parents – has affected teachers’ job satisfaction?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Tuan Nguyen:</strong> National surveys have shown that a significant portion of teachers – 55% – said that they would like to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/01/1076943883/teachers-quitting-burnout">leave teaching as soon as possible</a>. So even if those 55% do not leave their job, and we haven’t seen evidence of that, what that tells me is that teachers are stressed out and they’re burnt out. </p>
<p><strong>What policies can make teaching a more attractive long-term career and reduce teacher turnover?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Tuan Nguyen:</strong> We have to think about making salary competitive so that it’s comparable to other professions, but also make targeted policy decisions and incentives for hard-to-staff schools and subjects. </p>
<p>For instance, we know that economically disadvantaged schools tend to have <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/why-do-high-poverty-schools-have-difficulty-staffing-their-classrooms-with-qualified-teachers/">a really hard time attracting teachers</a>. </p>
<p>We also know that STEM teachers, special education teachers and bilingual education teachers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.4959">are in high demand</a>. We need those folks. So we need to make targeted incentives to get those folks into teaching, right?</p>
<p>We also need to raise the prestige and respect of teachers and the teaching profession. You know, thinking about how we can provide career ladders or promotions to teachers so that they can continue and build on their craft. There are many, many things that we can do. And I’m optimistic that … we can do some of those if we can align our interests and think about policy solutions that can solve some of these problems.</p>
<p><em>Watch the <a href="https://www.sciline.org/social-sciences/teacher-turnover/">full interview</a> to hear about the teacher shortage crisis.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://sciline.org/">SciLine</a> is a free service based at the nonprofit American Association for the Advancement of Science that helps journalists include scientific evidence and experts in their news stories.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190724/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tuan D. Nguyen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s not just COVID-19. Low salaries, subpar working conditions and lack of resources in the classroom are three of the reasons why teachers are abandoning the profession.Tuan D. Nguyen, Assistant Professor of Education, Kansas State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1881842022-08-08T12:21:33Z2022-08-08T12:21:33ZThe most recent efforts to combat teacher shortages don’t address the real problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477473/original/file-20220803-21-syg3j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5973%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teachers face a range of challenges, but hiring more teachers won't fix them.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakCalifornia/9e1c06a48efb4871b626326500ba287d/photo">AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>States have recently focused their efforts to reduce <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/03/school-teacher-shortage/">the nation’s teacher shortage</a> by promoting strategies that “<a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/states-relax-teacher-certification-rules-to-combat-shortages/2022/06">remove or relax barriers to entry</a>” to quickly bring new people into the teaching profession. </p>
<p><a href="https://edsource.org/2021/california-commission-continues-to-ease-testing-requirements-for-teachers/664620">California</a>, for example, allows teacher candidates to skip basic skills and subject matter tests if they have taken approved college courses. <a href="https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/education/new-mexico-lawmakers-seek-clearer-details-on-type-of-teacher-vacancies/article_dedd2a0e-0dc3-11ed-9948-afd9903735fd.html">New Mexico</a> is replacing subject skills tests with a portfolio to demonstrate teaching competency. </p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="https://www.kxii.com/2022/05/07/oklahoma-removes-requirement-pass-general-education-portion-competency-exam-future-teachers/">Oklahoma</a> eliminated the Oklahoma General Education Test as a certification requirement. <a href="https://www.khou.com/article/news/education/missouri-education-department-loosens-restrictions-teacher-certifications/63-c5bead98-ec0c-4b7a-9e0d-a731f515863c">Missouri</a> no longer looks at a prospective teacher’s overall grades – just the ones earned in select courses required to become a teacher. <a href="https://www.al.com/educationlab/2022/07/alabama-approves-immediate-changes-to-teacher-certification-praxis.html">Alabama</a> has moved to allow some who score below the cutoff scores on teacher certification exams to still get a teacher’s license, and Arizona’s education requirements for teachers now allow <a href="https://www.fox13now.com/arizona-teachers-no-longer-need-college-degree">people without a college degree</a> to begin teaching – so long as they are currently enrolled in college.</p>
<p>All of these efforts focus on <a href="https://www.ed.gov/coronavirus/factsheets/teacher-shortage">recruiting new teachers</a>, mostly by <a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/states-relax-teacher-certification-rules-to-combat-shortages/2022/06">lowering requirements to make it easier</a> for people to become certified to teach in public schools.</p>
<p>But these approaches do not address the actual causes of the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-illinois-teacher-shortage-salary-woes-20220430-vc4g5xtbkrgfbh6tehowohtqqm-story.html">nationwide teacher shortage</a>. As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=VziSjl8AAAAJ">we</a> found doing research for our book “<a href="https://www.infoagepub.com/products/How-Did-We-Get-Here">How Did We Get Here?: The Decay of the Teaching Profession</a>,” college students who are interested in becoming teachers and current teachers agree: The root cause of the problem is a longstanding overall lack of respect for teachers and their craft, which is reflected by decades of <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-penalty-dips-but-persists-in-2019-public-school-teachers-earn-about-20-less-in-weekly-wages-than-nonteacher-college-graduates/">low pay</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-education-reforms-can-support-teachers-around-the-world-instead-of-undermining-them-166528">hyperscrutiny</a> and <a href="https://www.apa.org/education-career/k12/violence-educators-technical-report.pdf">poor working conditions</a>. </p>
<h2>Disrespect to the profession is driving teachers away</h2>
<p>Even before COVID-19 hit, teachers were <a href="https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/A_Coming_Crisis_in_Teaching_REPORT.pdf">leaving the profession at an increasing rate</a>. In the late 1980s, annual teacher turnover was 5.6%, but it has grown to around 8% over the past decade. </p>
<p>The stress of <a href="https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2022/07/26/teachers-mental-health-crisis-pay-covid-pandemic-burnout/">teaching through a pandemic</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/teacher-burnout-hits-record-high-5-essential-reads-185550">has been speculated to drive away even more teachers</a>. About 1 in 6 teachers expressed that they would <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1108-1.html">likely leave their job</a> pre-pandemic, but this increased to 1 in 4 by the 2020-21 school year. While teachers continue to leave classrooms, <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/the-teacher-shortage-is-real-large-and-growing-and-worse-than-we-thought-the-first-report-in-the-perfect-storm-in-the-teacher-labor-market-series/">fewer people are signing up</a> to replace them. </p>
<p>In fact, <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/the-teacher-shortage-is-real-large-and-growing-and-worse-than-we-thought-the-first-report-in-the-perfect-storm-in-the-teacher-labor-market-series/">the number of incoming teachers declined</a> from 275,000 in 2010 to under 200,000 in 2020 and is projected to be under 120,000 by 2025. And even those staying on the job are so unhappy, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/25/teachers-strikes-us-low-pay-covid">many have been striking</a>.</p>
<p>We found that the reasons teachers are leaving primarily revolve around the disrespect they and the profession consistently face. For example, teachers <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-penalty-dips-but-persists-in-2019-public-school-teachers-earn-about-20-less-in-weekly-wages-than-nonteacher-college-graduates/">earn about 20% less</a> than similarly educated professionals.</p>
<p>They also faced an <a href="https://theconversation.com/teacher-burnout-hits-record-high-5-essential-reads-185550">escalating workload</a>, even before the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-022-09533-2">pandemic placed additional demands</a> on their time, energy and mental health.</p>
<p>In addition, teachers have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-education-reforms-can-support-teachers-around-the-world-instead-of-undermining-them-166528">experiencing diminishing control</a> over what and how they teach. They are also regularly exposed to a continued tide of <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/teacher-begs-parents-discipline-disrespectful-kids-viral-video-1701487">disrespectful student behavior</a> and parental hostility, as highlighted by a <a href="https://www.apa.org/education-career/k12/violence-educators-technical-report.pdf">survey of 15,000 educators</a> that revealed a growing trend of students verbally and physically harassing teachers, as well as parents engaging in online harassment and retaliatory behaviors for teachers simply doing their jobs.</p>
<p>This overall lack of respect drives turnover from existing teachers and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-07-2018-0129">discourages potential teachers</a> from considering the profession.</p>
<p>One college student told us, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-07-2018-0129">I looked into teaching as a career pretty strongly</a> … and every person I talked to, be it a grade school teacher or college professor, told me the same thing – that it was a lot of work, it was an unstable work environment, and the pay was very poor for the amount of work that you put in.” Unsurprisingly, she chose another career path.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477475/original/file-20220803-24-k2avdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in camouflage stands in a classroom and hands a piece of paper to a student" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477475/original/file-20220803-24-k2avdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477475/original/file-20220803-24-k2avdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477475/original/file-20220803-24-k2avdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477475/original/file-20220803-24-k2avdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477475/original/file-20220803-24-k2avdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477475/original/file-20220803-24-k2avdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477475/original/file-20220803-24-k2avdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In early 2022, New Mexico’s teacher shortage got so bad that the governor called in the National Guard to serve as substitutes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakSoldiersasTeachers/dad689df567f4a77874497b3506f0963/photo">AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio</a></span>
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<h2>The wrong solutions for the problem</h2>
<p>A growing number of states have eliminated or have proposed to remove <a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/states-relax-teacher-certification-rules-to-combat-shortages/2022/06">basic skills and subject matter exam requirements</a> for teacher certification. Those prerequisites have long served as <a href="https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/10090/chapter/2">quality control checks</a> for prospective teachers. While they do not guarantee effective teaching, they do serve as a minimum qualification threshold.</p>
<p>We believe efforts to loosen requirements for new teachers will bring more disrespect to the profession. History also suggests that they will make it so that schools that serve mostly students of color will have <a href="https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/crdc-teacher-access-report">even fewer certified and experienced teachers</a> than they already do.</p>
<p>But more directly, these efforts to boost teacher recruitment don’t address the reasons teachers are leaving the profession in the first place, which drive <a href="https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/blog/teacher-shortages-take-center-stage">90% of the demand for new teachers</a>.</p>
<p>Lowering the standards to allow more people to enter the teaching profession may, for a short period, boost the number of people available to stand in front of classrooms. But that approach does not make teaching an attractive profession to consider, nor worthwhile for someone to stay and thrive in. Solving the teacher shortage problem requires solutions that reduce the numbers of teachers leaving the field and specifically address the lack of respect, low pay, hyperscrutiny and poor working conditions that they regularly endure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188184/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Looser requirements for teacher certification don’t fix teachers’ problems, which are low pay, high workload and lack of respect.Henry Tran, Associate Professor of Education Leadership, University of South CarolinaDouglas A. Smith, Associate Professor of Education, Iowa State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1853942022-06-27T19:51:23Z2022-06-27T19:51:23ZWhat does equity in schools look like? And how is it tied to growing teacher shortages?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470988/original/file-20220627-17-xlnih3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5244%2C3522&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared victory on election night, he said he <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-22/anthony-albanese-acceptance-speech-full-transcript/101088736">wanted to unite Australians</a> around “our shared values of fairness and opportunity, and hard work and kindness to those in need”. </p>
<p>So what would this look like in Australian schools? Schools, after all, are where a society that believes in fairness and opportunity must begin. Equity involves more than <a href="https://theconversation.com/still-waiting-for-gonski-a-great-book-about-the-sorry-tale-of-school-funding-178016">fairly funding schools</a>. </p>
<p>It is about matching teachers’ passion with the respect, time, resources and conditions that enable them to do what they signed up to do: make a difference in students’ lives.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/almost-60-of-teachers-say-they-want-out-what-is-labor-going-to-do-for-an-exhausted-school-sector-183452">Almost 60% of teachers say they want out. What is Labor going to do for an exhausted school sector?</a>
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</p>
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<p>Based on <a href="https://www.monash.edu/education/research/projects/qproject">our research</a> into quality use of evidence do drive quality in education, I suggest equity, hard work and kindness should underpin school policy in three ways.</p>
<h2>1. Ensure fairness in funding</h2>
<p>The first priority is fairness in funding. It has been ten years since the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/senate/school_funding/school_funding/report/a03">Gonski review proposed</a> a more equitable approach to school funding. The goal was to ensure differences in students’ educational outcomes are not the product of differences in wealth, income or power.</p>
<p>Since then, the approach has been diluted and gone backwards.</p>
<p>While resourcing to schools increased by over A$2 billion over a decade, the Grattan Institute <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/news/lopsided-funding-gives-more-public-money-to-private-schools/">found</a> that once wage growth is taken into account, private schools received over 80% of this extra funding despite educating less than 20% of Australia’s most disadvantaged students.</p>
<p>COVID-19 <a href="https://theconversation.com/almost-60-of-teachers-say-they-want-out-what-is-labor-going-to-do-for-an-exhausted-school-sector-183452">has intensified</a> disparities that are hard-baked into Australia schooling through the historical <a href="https://theconversation.com/still-waiting-for-gonski-a-great-book-about-the-sorry-tale-of-school-funding-178016">segregation of schools</a>.</p>
<p>The basis of the reform therefore needs to be reviewed. As then Prime Minister Julia Gillard, a former education minister, effectively tied a hand behind the government’s back by committing to the principle that <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/education/no-gonski-nirvana-why-australia-s-most-ambitious-education-reforms-have-failed-20220215-p59wpj.html">no school would lose funding</a> as a result of the reforms.</p>
<p>This distorted Gonski’s needs-based aspiration.</p>
<p>The needs-based funding that needs to be directed to public schools for them to be fully funded according to the Gonski model equates to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/13/the-gonski-failure-why-did-it-happen-and-who-is-to-blame-for-the-defrauding-of-public-schools">more than $1,000 per student each year</a>. But ensuring all schools get a fair share of public funding is only a part of the challenge.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449433/original/file-20220302-17-sn3bo7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chart showing shortfalls and excesses in School Resource Standard (SRS) funding by state and territory, 2018-2023" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449433/original/file-20220302-17-sn3bo7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449433/original/file-20220302-17-sn3bo7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=719&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449433/original/file-20220302-17-sn3bo7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=719&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449433/original/file-20220302-17-sn3bo7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=719&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449433/original/file-20220302-17-sn3bo7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449433/original/file-20220302-17-sn3bo7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449433/original/file-20220302-17-sn3bo7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dese.gov.au/national-school-resourcing-board/resources/review-needs-based-funding-requirements-final-report-december-2019">Source: Review of needs‑based funding requirements: final report, December 2019/DESE</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/still-waiting-for-gonski-a-great-book-about-the-sorry-tale-of-school-funding-178016">Still 'Waiting for Gonski' – a great book about the sorry tale of school funding</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>2. Reward those who choose to teach</h2>
<p>A second priority relates to fairly rewarding the hard work of teachers. This should include incentives to enter the profession, and better pay and working conditions to keep them there.</p>
<p>Teacher shortages are <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-education-minister-jason-clare-can-fix-the-teacher-shortage-crisis-but-not-with-labors-election-plan-184321">reaching critical levels</a>. Modelling in Queensland, for example, shows <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/16/queensland-to-have-one-of-nations-worst-teacher-shortages-modelling-suggests">a 25% decline</a> in state high school teaching graduates over five years. Secondary school enrolments are predicted to increase by 13% over the same period.</p>
<p>As Southern Cross University education professor Pasi Sahlberg notes, teachers “<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-education-minister-jason-clare-can-fix-the-teacher-shortage-crisis-but-not-with-labors-election-plan-184321">start excited and depart exhausted</a>”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-education-minister-jason-clare-can-fix-the-teacher-shortage-crisis-but-not-with-labors-election-plan-184321">New Education Minister Jason Clare can fix the teacher shortage crisis – but not with Labor's election plan</a>
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<p>During the campaign, <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/labor-to-pay-highachievers-up-to-12000-a-year-to-study-as-school-teachers-at-university/news-story/8ba0f18569b2842842b123e45c7e370e#:%7E:text=High-achieving%2520students%2520would%2520be%2520paid%2520up%2520to%2520%252412%252C000,they%2520receive%2520an%2520ATAR%2520of%252080%2520or%2520more.">Labor promised</a> high-achieving students would be <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/high-achievers-to-get-up-to-12k-a-year-to-become-teachers-under-labor-20220508-p5ajj8.html">paid up to $12,000 a year</a> to study education to lift teacher standards.</p>
<p>“We want to make sure our kids get the best education they can. That means we have to make sure they get the best-quality teaching,” Albanese said. </p>
<p>Labor also announced plans to double the number of high-achieving students enrolling in teacher education over the next decade, from around 1,800 a year at present to 3,600.</p>
<p>Also, about 5,000 students who receive an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) of 80 <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/labor-to-recruit-more-high-achievers-into-education-20220508-p5ajjg">will be able to get</a> an annual $10,000 payment over their four-year degree. An extra $2,000 a year has been promised to students who commit to teach in regional areas – the worst affected by teacher shortages.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1523454888214396928"}"></div></p>
<p>Providing incentives like these might work – particularly as <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/labor-to-recruit-more-high-achievers-into-education-20220508-p5ajjg">only 3% of high achievers</a> in Australia select teaching for undergraduate study. Contrast this to the 19% who select science for undergraduate study.</p>
<p>Three decades ago, <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/labor-to-recruit-more-high-achievers-into-education-20220508-p5ajjg">about ten times this proportion</a> of high achievers chose to study teaching.</p>
<p>But, unlike other fields such as agriculture, such rankings are <a href="https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=3608">less reliable as predicators of performance</a> in education. It is <a href="https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=3608">rightly argued</a> that other skills, such as high-level interpersonal skills, are important to the quality of teaching, alongside high-level literacy and numeracy.</p>
<p>We need to be thinking more boldly and expansively about how we can inspire and assess people to enter the profession.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-charts-on-teachers-pay-in-australia-it-starts-out-ok-but-goes-downhill-pretty-quickly-122782">Three charts on teachers' pay in Australia: it starts out OK, but goes downhill pretty quickly</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>3. Make schools better for teaching</h2>
<p>But even if such measures might attract new teachers, attrition rates are also concerning.</p>
<p>Educators persistently indicate they are <a href="https://www.agsa.org.au/research/australian-principal-occupational-health-safety-and-wellbeing-survey-riley-et-al-2021/#:%7E:text=The%2520annual%2520Australian%2520Principal%2520Occupational%2520Health%252C%2520Safety%2520and,per%2520week%2520in%25202020%252C%2520while%2520twenty%2520per%2520cent%25E2%2580%25A6">suffering stress</a>, burnout, abuse from parents and excessive workload, which takes away from teaching students.</p>
<p>Increased workload pressures mean they have less time to focus on teaching students. It ultimately drives many out of teaching.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-21/nsw-teachers-to-strike-over-pay-and-conditions-next-week/101171092">Strikes</a> for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/14/nsw-education-department-launches-legal-action-against-teachers-union-over-may-strikes">better pay in New South Wales</a> in relation to the government’s 2.5% wage cap for public servants are on one level about fair pay, but also reflect deeper concerns about working conditions.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/read-the-room-premier-performance-pay-for-teachers-will-make-the-crisis-worse-185406">Read the room, Premier. Performance pay for teachers will make the crisis worse</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Teachers do not feel respected. A <a href="https://www.monash.edu/thank-your-teacher">2020 study</a> found nearly three-quarters of educators felt underappreciated.</p>
<p>The challenge of keeping teachers in the profession therefore entails much more than pay. <a href="https://theconversation.com/higher-salaries-might-attract-teachers-but-pay-isnt-one-of-the-top-10-reasons-for-leaving-177825">Research</a> has shown salary ranks after factors such as commitment to the profession, job satisfaction and positive relationships with students and colleagues. The most common reasons for leaving include workloads, being unappreciated, stress and burnout from years of struggle in substandard conditions.</p>
<p>Fostering excellence in teaching is therefore not just about attracting quality candidates, nor is it only about paying them at the right level once they become teachers. It’s about respecting their judgment and professionalism, as well as supporting them throughout their careers.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/higher-salaries-might-attract-teachers-but-pay-isnt-one-of-the-top-10-reasons-for-leaving-177825">Higher salaries might attract teachers but pay isn't one of the top 10 reasons for leaving</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1173340747384414215"}"></div></p>
<p>Even though pay might be poor <a href="https://theconversation.com/three-charts-on-teachers-pay-in-australia-it-starts-out-ok-but-goes-downhill-pretty-quickly-122782">in comparison with other professions</a> and the workload overwhelming, educators continue to teach because they are driven by a deep, passionate moral purpose to make a difference in kids’ lives.</p>
<p>We understand the challenges. Let’s hope kindness, fairness and a clear moral purpose drive the policy of Australia’s new government to address current problems as well as deeply embedded historical legacies.</p>
<p>The Albanese government has a tough, complex job – not unlike teaching.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185394/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucas Walsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Difficulties in attracting and retaining teachers have a lot to do with the conditions they find themselves working in. Here are 3 ways to develop a school system that’s fairer and better for all.Lucas Walsh, Professor and Director of the Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1782862022-03-11T13:18:57Z2022-03-11T13:18:57ZWhy most teachers who say they plan to leave the profession probably won’t do so anytime soon<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450496/original/file-20220307-83891-gxvux3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C106%2C7930%2C5163&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teachers across the U.S. have been under stress throughout the pandemic.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nicole-brown-a-second-grade-teacher-starts-class-at-carter-news-photo/1237956733">Jon Cherry/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every spring, school and district leaders ask teachers about their plans to return to teaching in the fall. They need to know how many teachers to begin recruiting for the next school year.</p>
<p>These career conversations are currently taking place under the unprecedented circumstances brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Stories from across the country show high levels of <a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-stress-hypervigilance-and-decision-fatigue-teaching-during-omicron/2022/01">teacher stress</a> and <a href="https://www.cnet.com/health/parenting/the-great-resignation-hasnt-hit-school-teachers-yet-heres-why-it-still-might/">burnout</a> from repeated and long-term disruptions to school routines.</p>
<p>School leaders are worried about whether they’ll <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2022/02/18/how-are-staffing-shortages-affecting-schools-during-the-pandemic/">have enough teachers to keep classrooms staffed</a>. In a January 2022 poll of members of the country’s largest teacher union, the National Education Association, <a href="https://www.nea.org/about-nea/media-center/press-releases/nea-survey-massive-staff-shortages-schools-leading-educator">55% of educators</a> said the pandemic has made them more likely to leave the teaching profession earlier than they had planned. That’s nearly double the proportion of teachers who <a href="https://www.nea.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/NEA%20Member%20COVID-19%20Survey%20Summary.pdf#page=2">said that in July 2020</a>.</p>
<p>Among Black and Hispanic teachers, the percentages of teachers saying they have accelerated their plans to leave teaching were even greater – 62% and 59%, respectively.</p>
<p>Despite these signals of increased turnover, the past two years have not experienced <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/2022/3/9/22967759/teacher-turnover-retention-pandemic-data">mass departures from the teaching profession</a>.</p>
<p>In the past, teachers who were looking to leave didn’t depart immediately, so there’s some hope that the current crop of burned-out teachers won’t either. Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.26300/3aq0-pv52">recent working paper</a> explains why. We looked at national data from over 100,000 public school teachers from 2004 to 2012. Of the teachers who said they would leave the profession “as soon as possible,” 34% had left the field by the following school year, and 66% were still teaching. By contrast, of the teachers who said they planned to remain in teaching as long as possible, just 5% left the profession, and 95% kept teaching the following year. </p>
<h2>Leaving isn’t immediate</h2>
<p>Teachers’ feelings about departure can change throughout the year. The 2021-2022 school year helps to illustrate this ebb and flow in teachers’ career plans.</p>
<p>The high rates of <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2022/0126/What-happens-to-US-education-if-there-s-no-one-to-teach">teacher absences</a> during the surge of the omicron variant added additional responsibilities on an already strained teacher workforce. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/teachers-burnout-staffing-shortage-pandemic-quitting-schools-education-2022-2">A teacher in Memphis who eventually quit</a> said she was assigned nearly 200 additional students beyond her normal teaching load when a colleague quit midyear. <a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/for-anxious-teachers-omicron-feels-like-walking-into-a-trap/2022/01">An elementary school teacher in Brooklyn worried</a> that too many teachers were working in schools without adequate ventilation systems or rules to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.</p>
<p>A beginning teacher in Colorado reflected in <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/teacher-shortages-leaving-school-education/">one report</a>: “I also might want to just do it for one more year, just to kind of be more stable financially. If you asked me if I’ll be in the classroom in two years, or three years, I say those odds are even lower.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An adult approaches a young person in a school classroom" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Many teachers are evaluating how long they plan to stay in the profession.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakMasksReaction/9e3e6314e70341f3897080cee13954cc/photo">AP Photo/David Goldman</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As omicron wanes, teachers’ urgent feelings to leave may ease.</p>
<p>Changing personal circumstances may also influence teachers’ decision to leave. Many teachers depend on employer-provided health insurance and would want to find a job with comparable benefits. <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/4/6/22368846/teacher-turnover-quitting-pandemic-data-economy">A veteran Florida teacher who considered quitting</a> explains: “I need my health insurance, especially as I’m recovering from COVID. And I need the paycheck.”</p>
<p>Some teachers are keeping their jobs while they figure out their next steps. For example, one <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/02/teachers-are-getting-ready-to-quit-due-to-the-pandemic.html">North Carolina teacher</a> says she is thinking about going back to school for a new degree outside of education.</p>
<h2>Likelihood of departure</h2>
<p>Based on our research, we think it unlikely that most teachers who say they plan to leave teaching as soon as possible will actually leave this school year.</p>
<p>However, if even one-third of teachers who say they’re leaving the profession do so, that would be significantly more than the <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/slc">8% of teachers who leave in an average year</a>.</p>
<p>Teachers are clearly sounding the alarm about stress, burnout, dissatisfaction with school and district leadership, and other working conditions – even if they do stay in their jobs.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178286/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite signals of increased turnover, the past two years have not experienced mass departures from the teaching profession.Christopher Redding, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, University of FloridaAllison Gilmour, Assistant Professor of Education, Temple UniversityElizabeth Bettini, Assistant Professor of Special Education, Boston UniversityTuan D. Nguyen, Assistant Professor of Education, Kansas State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1761182022-02-11T13:29:58Z2022-02-11T13:29:58ZPuerto Rico has a plan to recover from bankruptcy — but the deal won’t ease people’s daily struggles<p>Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy problem is complicated — but the various ways the crisis hurts most Puerto Ricans is unmistakable. </p>
<p>Since Puerto Rico declared bankruptcy in 2017, it’s become harder for people to decide where they can afford to live and where their children can enroll in school.</p>
<p>The island declared a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/business/dealbook/puerto-rico-debt.html">form of bankruptcy in 2017</a>. At the time, the island faced historic levels of debt, topping $72 billion. But Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, far worse than Detroit’s $18 billion bankruptcy claims <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/12/15/18073574/detroit-bankruptcy-pensions-municipal">in 2014</a>, has now reached a potential turning point.</p>
<p>U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain approved a large-scale debt restructuring plan on Jan. 18, 2022, that would cut <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/18/us/puerto-rico-bankruptcy.html">$33 billion</a> from Puerto Rico’s debt and work to pay back its creditors.</p>
<p>Because Puerto Rico has been a <a href="https://www.history.com/news/puerto-rico-statehood">territory of the United States</a> since 1898, the bankruptcy plan unfolded in a unique way that has limited residents’ say over financial cuts to public programs that directly affect them, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/07/24/puerto-rico-protests-ricardo-rossello-la-junta/">angering many Puerto Ricans</a>.</p>
<p>As a scholar of <a href="https://polisci.ufl.edu/carlos-a-suarez-carrasquillo/">Puerto Rican politics</a> and a native Puerto Rican, I believe that the island’s <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/puerto-rico-s-new-bankruptcy-plan-does-nothing-most-island-n1287883">recently announced debt agreement</a> will not make it easier for citizens to find homes, schools, and jobs. But it will fuel and test Puerto Ricans’ ability to mobilize politically.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445788/original/file-20220210-19-uv3w77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A silhouette of two adults and two children shows the outline of buildings in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445788/original/file-20220210-19-uv3w77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445788/original/file-20220210-19-uv3w77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445788/original/file-20220210-19-uv3w77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445788/original/file-20220210-19-uv3w77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445788/original/file-20220210-19-uv3w77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445788/original/file-20220210-19-uv3w77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445788/original/file-20220210-19-uv3w77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A financial institution stands behind a family sculpture in San Juan in 2017, when Puerto Rico declared a form of bankruptcy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/financial-institution-stands-behind-a-family-sculpture-on-may-15-2017-picture-id685530632?s=2048x2048">Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Puerto Rico’s controversial bankruptcy crisis</h2>
<p>Puerto Rico’s money problems, which have grown over the past <a href="http://newserver.jjay.cuny.edu/sites/default/files/contentgroups/economics/02-Ian_1.pdf">two decades</a>, are the result of many factors: Years of borrowing to cover budget deficits, poor <a href="https://cepr.net/puerto-rico-s-colonial-legacy-and-its-continuing-economic-troubles/">economic growth</a>, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/puerto-rico-governor-others-face-formal-corruption-probe">political corruption</a> and a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/puerto-ricos-population-fell-118-33-million-census-shows-rcna767">population decline</a> all play a role.</p>
<p>Since Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, and not a state or city, it does not have the right to officially file for bankruptcy.</p>
<p>In 2016, Congress passed the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, a <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/2328">law known as PROMESA</a>, that created a new government agency. This agency, the <a href="https://oversightboard.pr.gov">Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico</a>, was responsible for laying out Puerto Rico’s debt repayment strategy.</p>
<p>But local people had no say in the creation or composition of this board, known simply as the Junta – meaning council in Spanish. None of its current <a href="https://oversightboard.pr.gov/about-us/">seven board members</a> are from the island. Puerto Ricans have also not been involved in the Junta’s financial decisions. </p>
<p>Puerto Rico’s debt was never publicly audited, which lent to <a href="http://www.auditoriaya.org/">public concerns</a> about lack of transparency in managing this crisis. </p>
<p>The Junta primarily made financial cuts, or austerity measures, to address the debt. They <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/will-puerto-ricos-debt-restructuring-deal-end-largest-bankruptcy-us-hi-rcna4051">achieved an agreement</a> with the Puerto Rican government to partially pay back its debt. </p>
<p>But, for everyday people, these cuts have worsened their quality of life. </p>
<p>One unpopular austerity measure the Junta took was freezing public school <a href="https://labornotes.org/blogs/2021/09/viewpoint-battle-continues-save-puerto-rican-teachers-pension">teachers’ pension plans</a>. Financial cuts also limited Puerto Rico’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/08/01/632804633/puerto-ricos-wounded-medicaid-program-faces-even-deeper-cuts">Medicaid spending</a> and have <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/puerto-rico-governor-signs-law-debt-restructuring-bill-rcna3902">threatened funding for people’s pension</a> plans and public universities.</p>
<p>Thousands of teachers, earning a starting salary of $1,750 a month, have taken to the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/puerto-rico-hundreds-teachers-leave-classrooms-protest-higher-wages-rcna14907">streets in protest</a>. Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi announced on Feb. 8, 2022, that teachers will receive a temporary monthly raise of <a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/593393-teachers-in-puerto-rico-to-get-1k-monthly-pay-raise">$1,000 starting in July</a>.</p>
<p>The teachers’ demands echo the sentiment of many Puerto Ricans, who do not like these <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/university-puerto-rico-protests/">austerity measures</a>. </p>
<h2>Public schools take a hit</h2>
<p>Puerto Rico’s Department of Education has regularly closed public schools over the last few years because of financial cuts, at a pace that was previously unseen for <a href="https://centropr.hunter.cuny.edu/centrovoices/current-affairs/new-report-population-loss-and-school-closures-puerto-rico">decades</a>. </p>
<p>Since 2016, 523 schools <a href="https://www.telemundopr.com/programas/rayos-x/cierre-de-escuelas-no-reflejo-ahorros-significativos/2305001/">have closed</a> in Puerto Rico. The education department <a href="https://www.latinorebels.com/2022/01/24/prschoolclosings/">has plans</a> to close 83 schools by 2026, affecting 18,644 students. </p>
<p>Julia Keleher, the former secretary of education in Puerto Rico, <a href="https://www.wapa.tv/programas/losetodo/secretaria-de-educacion-reacciona-al-cierre-de-escuelas_20131122405968.html">is an advocate</a> of school closings.</p>
<p>Keleher was a polarizing public figure — she was also a mainland American official in Puerto Rico — a reminder of the island’s colonial history. Keleher pleaded guilty to <a href="https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/puerto-ricos-former-education-secretary-pleads-guilty-to-fraud-conspiracy/2021/06">federal fraud conspiracy charges</a> over mismanagement of public funds in June 2021. </p>
<p>Puerto Rico’s Department of Education has new leadership. But some specialized arts schools, such as the Central High School in San Juan, have continued to shut down, prompting <a href="https://www.change.org/p/departamento-de-educaci%C3%B3n-de-puerto-rico-no-al-cierre-de-la-central-high-central-de-artes-visuales">online petitions for change</a>.</p>
<p>School closings more broadly sparked significant protests in San Juan by parents, students, teachers and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ed003c843f094e56ab0229dc624ce4a8">politicians</a> over the last few years. Many working-class students needed to travel farther to reach open schools that were outside of their communities, disrupting their learning experience.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445786/original/file-20220210-47270-1ssc46c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People waving Puerto Rican flags march together in front of colorful buildings in San Juan" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445786/original/file-20220210-47270-1ssc46c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445786/original/file-20220210-47270-1ssc46c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445786/original/file-20220210-47270-1ssc46c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445786/original/file-20220210-47270-1ssc46c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445786/original/file-20220210-47270-1ssc46c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445786/original/file-20220210-47270-1ssc46c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445786/original/file-20220210-47270-1ssc46c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Puerto Rico teachers protest for a better salary on Feb. 9, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/puerto-rico-teachers-protest-for-a-better-salary-demanding-higher-picture-id1238330618?s=2048x2048">Alejandro Granadillo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Gentrification amps up in Puerto Rico</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/12/16/what-us-business-leaders-can-learn-from-puerto-ricos-booming-real-estate-market/?sh=70c645c02c5d">Rising housing costs</a> compose the latest chapter of Puerto Rico’s layered financial saga. </p>
<p>The housing problem coincides with Puerto Rico attracting foreign investors with new tax breaks. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/working-papers/tracking-neighborhood-change-in-geographies-opportunity-post-disaster">Economic development experts have argued</a> that the arrival of new investors, combined with the Puerto Rico government’s tax relief measures, create new <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/31/us/puerto-rico-gentrification.html">gentrification concerns</a> about affordable housing. This is particularly true along the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGXtWpCOiC8">coastal regions</a> — that may hurt Puerto Ricans. </p>
<p>American financier John Paulson is one example of a growing wave of outsiders who have purchased property in Puerto Rico, seeking to receive <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2016/02/12/investing/puerto-rico-john-paulson/index.html">tax breaks</a>. </p>
<p>This investment was made possible by a <a href="https://bvirtualogp.pr.gov/ogp/Bvirtual/leyesreferencia/PDF/Desarrollo%20Econ%C3%B3mico/22-2012/22-2012.pdf">new law</a>, which aims to attract wealthy foreigners to the island. It does this by providing new Puerto Rican residents with exemptions from <a href="https://www.natlawreview.com/article/irs-targeting-those-who-relocated-to-puerto-rico-wake-act-22">paying income tax</a> on all “passive” income, meaning money from investments, for example. </p>
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<p>The net result is significant local <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crypto-bitcoin-puerto-rico-taxes-b1995734.html">resistance</a> to foreign investors. </p>
<p>Now that a judge has approved Puerto Rico’s debt restructuring, the austerity measures cannot be changed on paper. But Puerto Rico’s public still has the chance to push back and lobby for change, as they continue to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/public-employees-puerto-rico-protest-wages-frustration-governor/story?id=82774827">do through protests</a> to advocate for their political demands.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176118/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carlos A. Suárez Carrasquillo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Puerto Rico has reached an agreement to partially settle its historic bankruptcy crisis. But public cuts to education and health care are unlikely to ease, creating ongoing challenges for Puerto RicansCarlos A. Suárez Carrasquillo, Senior Lecturer in Political Science, Center for Latin American Studies, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1753722022-01-27T13:29:09Z2022-01-27T13:29:09ZWhere are all the substitute teachers?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441862/original/file-20220120-9530-1gxur3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=46%2C0%2C5202%2C3457&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Substitute teachers, like this one in Indiana in 2020, are in short supply during the pandemic.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakIndiana/d565e58bed5142a2b0e05acb1c691531/photo">AP Photo/Michael Conroy</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a result of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, many school districts across the country are finding themselves <a href="https://tsa.ed.gov/#/reports">short of teachers</a>, who are quitting, getting sick or even dying.</p>
<p>Some schools have even <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/schools-desperate-substitute-teachers-are-turning-parents-n1287401">called on parents</a> to step in to provide adult supervision in classrooms. In New Mexico, the governor has asked <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/20/new-mexico-national-guard-substitute-teachers-omicron">National Guard members to serve as substitute teachers</a>.</p>
<p>Normally schools hire substitutes to cover teacher absences. But there are <a href="https://www.journal-news.com/news/struggle-for-schools-to-find-substitute-teachers-grows/GUJIGEKK5JAYFL3XCBIHWFAFWA/">so many teachers out with COVID-19</a> that the <a href="https://www.kut.org/education/2022-01-07/school-districts-ask-parents-to-fill-in-as-substitute-teachers-as-covid-cases-rise-in-central-texas">demand is much higher</a> <a href="https://www.nctq.org/publications/Roll-Call-2020">than usual</a>. </p>
<p>Pay for substitute teachers averaged <a href="https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes253031.htm">$17 an hour in May 2020</a>, according to federal figures. Assuming a substitute worked as much as possible – seven hours a day for 180 school days – that’s $21,420 a year, which is about <a href="https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes252021.htm">one-third of the national average pay</a> for full-time teachers. It is also <a href="https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines/prior-hhs-poverty-guidelines-federal-register-references/2021-poverty-guidelines">below the poverty line</a> for households with three people. Because school breaks are short, people who are <a href="https://www.telegram.com/story/news/2021/09/02/substitute-teacher-shortage-spikes-central-massachusetts-pre-pandemic/8244646002/">regular subs</a> may not be able to pursue longer-term work.</p>
<p>And that’s on the high end. Substitute teaching work is not always steady and <a href="https://ksltv.com/474519/jordan-school-district-offering-500-incentive-to-keep-substitute-teachers/?">doesn’t usually earn benefits</a>, so it’s less attractive in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/12/29/job-market-2021/">job market where workers have many options</a>.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.binghamtonschools.org/district/administration">education administrators</a> and <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/tlel/faculty-and-staff/profile.html?id=smcleod">scholars of school leadership</a>, we see school districts across the U.S. adjusting their requirements, and their compensation, for substitute teachers – all in an effort to keep schools open despite large numbers of staff out sick.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441863/original/file-20220120-8326-74n5ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A person speaks at a lectern, with several people in camouflage uniforms behind her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441863/original/file-20220120-8326-74n5ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441863/original/file-20220120-8326-74n5ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441863/original/file-20220120-8326-74n5ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441863/original/file-20220120-8326-74n5ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441863/original/file-20220120-8326-74n5ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441863/original/file-20220120-8326-74n5ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441863/original/file-20220120-8326-74n5ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has asked the state’s National Guard to help staff classrooms amid the pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TeacherShortageNewMexico/7a70918ae43e4636ad67dfb40b7b1188/photo">AP Photo/Morgan Lee</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why are there substitute teachers?</h2>
<p>With the rise of compulsory education in the U.S. in the early 20th century, and the subsequent emergence of collective bargaining agreements for public school teachers, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/American-Education/Spring/p/book/9780367553869">schools began needing to hire substitute teachers</a>. Contracts often gave teachers a specific number of sick or personal days off. School districts had to provide coverage when a regular teacher was out, either for a short period of illness or a longer time, such as a maternity leave.</p>
<p>In general, states set <a href="https://www.teachercertificationdegrees.com/careers/substitute-teacher">minimum requirements for substitutes</a>. In Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Virginia and Wyoming, anyone with a high school diploma can be a sub, unless a specific school district has implemented a higher level of requirements. But most states require at least some college credits, and <a href="https://bestaccreditedcolleges.org/articles/how-to-become-a-substitute-teacher.html">local school boards often set additional requirements</a>, such as licensure in the subject where the person will work as a substitute teacher.</p>
<p>Subs are employed in a variety of ways, sometimes through collective bargaining agreements with school districts, including formal approval as employees with negotiated compensation and working conditions, or as <a href="https://ess.com/blog/articles-substitute-teachers-as-independent-contractors/">independent contractors</a>, or through external temporary staffing agencies. Their pay is typically determined by school districts. In general, short-term subs, who fill in for a teacher for a day or so at a time, are paid the least. Subs tend to <a href="https://work.chron.com/full-time-substitute-teachers-salary-20911.html">get paid more</a> if they work some number of days in a row, or if they are engaged to fill a longer-term absence. Pay also can increase depending on a sub’s educational level, license status or prior teaching experience.</p>
<p>Though the national average in 2020 – the most recent year for which data is available – was <a href="https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes253031.htm">$17 an hour</a>, actual pay varies widely by location. Districts in and around southeastern Maryland paid an average of <a href="https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes253031.htm">$42.13 an hour</a> in 2020. But school districts on Alabama’s Gulf Coast paid <a href="https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes253031.htm">$8.35 an hour</a> on average that same year. </p>
<p><iframe id="CuOLA" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/CuOLA/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>What can be done to address the shortage?</h2>
<p>The standard approach to a worker shortage is to <a href="https://workforceinstitute.org/3-ways-to-fix-your-labor-shortage/">raise pay and other compensation</a>. One school district outside San Antonio, Texas, has temporarily raised its substitute teacher pay by <a href="https://www.kens5.com/article/news/education/neisd-boosts-substitute-teacher-pay/273-27b7cab6-243f-42cd-9014-7adf5b4de358">as much as 20%</a>, to <a href="https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/north-east-isd-temporarily-raise-substitute-teacher-pay-to-alleviate-staffing-shortages-schools-coronavirus-pandemic-jobs-employees-districts-sick-certification">between $98 and $150 per day</a>, depending on a person’s qualifications.</p>
<p>In education, however, we have more often seen a reduction in required qualifications for a particular job, demanding a lower-level license or less prior experience. That’s happening, too, such as in Kansas, which temporarily <a href="https://www.thekansan.com/2022/01/18/kansas-loosens-substitute-teacher-requirements/">eliminated the statewide requirement</a> that subs have at least some college-level education.</p>
<p>However, our experience as school district leaders has shown us that attracting and keeping substitute teachers requires more than fair compensation. </p>
<p>Often, substitute teachers are viewed on the school system’s periphery rather than as an integral core. For instance, subs often are not included in district events such as professional learning opportunities or districtwide communications. Research has demonstrated that even though substitutes are necessary for the continuing function of schools, <a href="https://doi.org/10.11575/ajer.v53i1.55196">substitutes do not see the organization as valuing their contribution</a>.</p>
<p>Some substitutes, such as retired teachers, may prefer to be more detached from general school operations. But other subs could interpret that distancing as a message that they are not really a part of the school culture. Principals and fellow teachers could welcome subs more directly, greeting them, visiting their classrooms, and making sure they know where to find a coat rack or a fridge for their lunch. Offering subs access to a break room and professional development also helps <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/edfp_a_00329">connect substitutes to the broader school community</a>.</p>
<h2>Opportunities for change</h2>
<p>We also think it might be time for schools to consider alternatives to the current substitute teaching model. </p>
<p>Some districts <a href="https://dailyprogress.com/news/local/new-substitute-guidelines-would-pay-teachers-who-cover-a-colleagues-class/article_1496dd74-438a-5afa-965c-af951c4e29df.html">pay regular teachers to cover for absent colleagues</a> during planning or preparation periods. If this model is set up correctly, teachers substituting in other classrooms will have existing relationships with students and expertise in the subject matter needing to be taught.</p>
<p>Binghamton University, where we work, has developed a program called “<a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/tlel/field-education/index.html">Substitutes with a Purpose</a>” in collaboration with regional educational leaders. This program sets up graduate students in education as substitute teachers, using that time to fulfill state requirements for in-classroom teaching. </p>
<p>We have found that this effort <a href="https://www.infoagepub.com/products/Rethinking-School-University-Partnerships">helps regional school districts address substitute shortages</a> and helps university students earn money and fulfill academic requirements. It also provides an opportunity for these future teachers to become known in local schools, furthering their efforts to secure future full-time employment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175372/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>School districts across the US are starting to pay subs more and make it easier to become a sub – in an effort to keep classrooms operating despite large numbers of staff out sick.Suzanne McLeod, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkLarry Dake, Adjunct Professor of Educational Leadership, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1531292021-02-12T13:18:10Z2021-02-12T13:18:10ZHow US Education Secretary nominee Miguel Cardona can stop the teacher shortage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383819/original/file-20210211-21-8qlx3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C22%2C5020%2C3314&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. Secretary of Education nominee Miguel Cardona testifies during his confirmation hearing.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/secretary-of-education-nominee-miguel-cardona-testifies-news-photo/1230952226?adppopup=true">Susan Walsh/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: <a href="https://hechingerreport.org/who-is-the-new-u-s-education-secretary-miguel-cardona/">Miguel Cardona</a> – President Joe Biden’s choice for secretary of education – faces <a href="https://joebiden.com/education/">several urgent and contentious priorities</a>, including reopening schools safely, addressing systemic racism within schools, and reversing the ever-growing teacher shortage. Here, four experts explain how to recruit more people to become educators in the nation’s public schools.</em></p>
<h2>1. Increase pay and reduce class sizes</h2>
<p><strong>Bob Spires, associate professor of education, University of Richmond</strong> </p>
<p>The <a href="https://tsa.ed.gov/#/home/">teacher shortage</a> has <a href="https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/coming-crisis-teaching">become a crisis</a> in the United States. In 2018, there was an estimated <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/low-relative-pay-and-high-incidence-of-moonlighting-play-a-role-in-the-teacher-shortage-particularly-in-high-poverty-schools-the-third-report-in-the-perfect-storm-in-the-teacher-labor-marke/">shortage of over 100,000</a> K-12 teachers. Meanwhile, the demand for K-12 teaching jobs is expected to continue to increase <a href="https://www.educationcorner.com/job-outlook-for-teachers.html">5% per year</a> through 2028.</p>
<p>Part of the reason for the shortage has to do with pay and working conditions. On average, teachers make <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/low-relative-pay-and-high-incidence-of-moonlighting-play-a-role-in-the-teacher-shortage-particularly-in-high-poverty-schools-the-third-report-in-the-perfect-storm-in-the-teacher-labor-marke/">roughly 20% less</a> than other college graduates, according to research from the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that focuses on worker issues. A majority of teachers <a href="https://www.epi.org/press/59-percent-of-teachers-take-on-additional-paid-work-to-supplement-their-pay/#:%7E:text=News%20from%20EPI%2059%20percent,work%20to%20supplement%20their%20pay&text=For%20these%20teachers%2C%20moonlighting%20made,teachers%20in%20high%2Dpoverty%20schools">work additional jobs</a> – either within or outside their schools – to supplement their pay. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, class sizes continue to grow, which teacher unions say <a href="https://www.cta.org/our-advocacy/class-size-matters">negatively affects teachers and students</a>, despite statements to the contrary <a href="https://educationpost.org/betsy-devos-wants-larger-class-sizes-and-fewer-teachers/">by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos</a>. Peer-reviewed research bears out that smaller classes are <a href="https://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2016/06/class-size">academically, socially and economically beneficial</a>, especially to low-income and minority students.</p>
<p>To curb the shortage, I believe educational leaders and policymakers must take proactive steps at the local, state and federal levels to increase pay and resources for teachers, and alleviate pressure by reducing class sizes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Teacher at desk in school classroom" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382280/original/file-20210203-15-5vp7oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=33%2C6%2C4415%2C2955&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382280/original/file-20210203-15-5vp7oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382280/original/file-20210203-15-5vp7oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382280/original/file-20210203-15-5vp7oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382280/original/file-20210203-15-5vp7oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382280/original/file-20210203-15-5vp7oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382280/original/file-20210203-15-5vp7oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Even before COVID-19, teachers were reporting ever-increasing levels of dissatisfaction.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/judy-chan-a-teacher-at-yung-wing-school-p-s-124-prepares-news-photo/1271416170">Michael Loccisano/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Improve morale and recruit diverse teachers</h2>
<p><strong>Doris A. Santoro, professor of education, Bowdoin College</strong></p>
<p>During the pandemic, teachers’ work has been filled with <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2021/02/07/reopening-schools-debates-teachers-fear-covid-19/4413729001/">uncertainty and anxiety</a>. Their ways of finding <a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-teacher-demoralization-isnt-the-same-as-teacher-burnout/2020/11">meaning and value</a> as educators have been upended through necessary safety measures that have radically altered their work. </p>
<p>There are no romantic “before times” for most public school educators. Before COVID-19, teachers were reporting <a href="https://pdkpoll.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/pdkpoll51-2019.pdf">ever-increasing</a> levels of dissatisfaction. Schools were already facing continuing teacher shortages, with one estimate as high as <a href="https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.27.3696">109,000 teachers working without certification</a> in the U.S. in 2017-18. <a href="https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/teacher-turnover-brief">High teacher turnover</a> both <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2019/04/29/teacher-turnover-and-the-disruption-of-teacher-staffing/">disrupts student learning and can degrade the work environment</a> for those who remain.</p>
<p>These conditions may indicate the demoralization of a profession. And yet the profession could become better appreciated as a result of this pandemic. Families are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/03/27/teachers-deserve-make-billion-dollars-shonda-rhimes-plus-other-homeschooling-parents-appreciating-educators/">learning firsthand</a> about the demands of teaching as many students learn from home.</p>
<p>Significant <a href="https://www.ecs.org/50-state-comparison-teacher-recruitment-and-retention/">state and local efforts</a> are underway to recruit educators to eliminate the teacher shortage. Some of these efforts focus on <a href="https://ccsso.org/resource-library/vision-and-guidance-diverse-and-learner-ready-teacher-workforce">attracting teachers</a> who are Black, Indigenous or other people of color. Nationwide, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/27/americas-public-school-teachers-are-far-less-racially-and-ethnically-diverse-than-their-students/">only 20% of teachers</a> identify as people of color, while the population of students of color is over 50%. </p>
<p>Policymakers, education leaders and teachers will need to confront the historic and current reasons for these shortages, including the <a href="https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/65-years-after-brown-v-board-where-are-all-the-black-educators/2019/05">mass dismissal of Black teachers and principals</a> after Brown v. Board of Education, and classroom practices that leave many teachers of color <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/black-teachers-feel-pigeonholed-report-finds/2016/11">feeling devalued and alienated</a>.</p>
<h2>3. Bring back joy</h2>
<p><strong>Diane B. Hirshberg, professor of education policy at the Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage</strong></p>
<p>For several decades now, teachers have been judged on how well their students do <a href="http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar08/vol65/num06/Testing-the-Joy-Out-of-Learning.aspx">on standardized tests</a>.</p>
<p>These efforts have led teachers to use lessons that are <a href="https://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2015/12/reversing-deprofessionalization">narrow and often scripted</a> and that focus mostly on core subjects.</p>
<p>For many teachers, this has <a href="https://www.today.com/parents/teacher-quits-over-emphasis-standardized-tests-it-takes-joy-out-2D79439972">taken joy</a> out of what they do.</p>
<p>Giving teachers a canned curriculum and requiring them to follow a schedule and materials developed by people from a different state – or by a big publishing house – can leave teachers feeling as if their own expertise is <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ986817">not recognized or valued</a>. Also, this takes the creativity out of teaching and connecting with students, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/11/20/why-todays-college-students-dont-want-to-be-teachers/">diminishes the gratification</a> that comes from seeing their efforts and expertise transform the lives of their students. </p>
<p>Reversing the teacher shortage, in my view, will require Secretary Cardona to push for a system that fosters innovation, rewards expertise in teachers’ careers and uses standardized tests to inform – but not dictate – teacher practice. This requires collaboration among teacher education institutions, states and the Department of Education to transform both teacher preparation and classroom practice. It will require significant investment and patience, but I believe the payoff both for students and the economy will be profound.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382534/original/file-20210204-14-1nqume2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C20%2C6876%2C4879&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Teacher hugs a young student outside a classroom" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382534/original/file-20210204-14-1nqume2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C20%2C6876%2C4879&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382534/original/file-20210204-14-1nqume2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382534/original/file-20210204-14-1nqume2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382534/original/file-20210204-14-1nqume2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382534/original/file-20210204-14-1nqume2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382534/original/file-20210204-14-1nqume2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382534/original/file-20210204-14-1nqume2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For some teachers, standardized testing regimes have taken some of the joy out of classrooms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kelly-harper-left-one-of-four-finalists-for-the-national-news-photo/1137246325?adppopup=true">Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Build education leadership</h2>
<p><strong>Richard L. Schwab, professor of educational leadership and dean emeritus, University of Connecticut</strong></p>
<p>To boost student achievement and teacher morale, <a href="https://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/pages/how-leadership-influences-student-learning.aspx">research shows</a> you need highly educated and experienced school principals and district leaders. </p>
<p>Thriving businesses invest heavily in <a href="https://www.harvardbusiness.org/what-we-do/leadership-development-training-what-we-do/">leadership development</a>. They commit to training employees who show leadership potential. As in business, effective leaders in education require the right skills and proper support. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/pages/launching-redesign-university-principal-preparation-programs.aspx">Researchers have identified</a> five components of effective principal training programs. They include a coherent curriculum, supervised experiences, active recruiting, cohort structure and continuous engagement with participants.</p>
<p>Examples of programs working with local school districts to do it differently include ours at the University of Connecticut <a href="https://ucapp.education.uconn.edu/">Administrator Preparation Program</a>, University of Washington’s <a href="https://www.danforth.uw.edu">Danforth Educational Leadership Program</a>, University of Denver’s <a href="https://morgridge.du.edu/programs/educational-leadership-policy-studies/certificate">Ritchie Program for School Leaders</a> and the <a href="https://education.uic.edu/academics/programs/school-leadership">Urban Educational Leadership Program</a> at the University of Illinois at Chicago. They are highly selective and seek to recruit high-potential district educators. Their faculty includes university scholars teaching alongside seasoned practitioners, and they offer extensive clinical placements for participants, who must demonstrate competence as instructional leaders.</p>
<p>Secretary Cardona – who was himself an adjunct professor in Connecticut’s APP program – can help expand such programs nationally, for example by creating seed grants that encourage school-university partnerships and making graduate student loans forgivable to help qualified teachers pursue leadership positions.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153129/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diane B Hirshberg's research on teacher supply, demand, turnover and salary issues in Alaska has been supported by the Alaska State Legislature and the University of Alaska. Other research on education policy issues has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ford Foundation.
Diane Hirshberg was founding director of the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Doris Santoro is a Fellow with the National Education Policy Center. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard L. Schwab is faculty member with the Department of Educational Leadership in the Neag School of Education where the UCAPP program mentioned is located. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Spires does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Four experts weigh in on ways to replenish the US teacher workforce and curb burnout.Bob Spires, Associate Professor of Education, University of RichmondDiane B Hirshberg, Professor of Education Policy, University of Alaska AnchorageDoris A. Santoro, Professor of Education, Bowdoin CollegeRichard L. Schwab, Raymond Neag Endowed Professor of Educational Leadership and Dean Emeritus, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1317392020-02-18T13:55:01Z2020-02-18T13:55:01ZDemocratic candidates seek a big and unprecedented K-12 funding boost<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315356/original/file-20200213-11000-t70bwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C640%2C4062%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">She's got proposals for constituents too young to vote.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/democratic-presidential-candidate-sen-amy-klobuchar-greets-news-photo/1199727589">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Democratic presidential candidates are proposing <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2019/09/presidential-candidates-education-2020-teachers-student-debt-school-safety-funding.html">new approaches</a> to the <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html">federal government’s role</a> in public education. </p>
<p>Former Vice President <a href="https://joebiden.com/education/">Joe Biden</a> and Sen. <a href="https://berniesanders.com/en/issues/reinvest-in-public-education/">Bernie Sanders</a> want to triple the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/EDFP_a_00103">US$15 billion</a> spent annually on <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/programs/titleiparta/index.html">Title I</a>, a program that sends extra federal dollars to school districts that educate a high percentage of poor children.</p>
<p>Sen. <a href="https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/public-education">Elizabeth Warren</a> wants to go further and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2019/10/22/what-elizabeth-warrens-k-12-plan-reveals-about-education-politics-today/">quadruple funding for that same program</a>. </p>
<p>Other candidates have similar proposals to substantially increase funding for public education, including Sen. <a href="https://medium.com/@AmyforAmerica/amys-first-100-days-b7adf9f91262">Amy Klobuchar</a> and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/12/07/mayor-pete-buttigieg-k-12-education-plan-charter-schools/">Pete Buttigieg</a>. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg hasn’t yet issued his education platform, or <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/01/05/bloomberg-education-plan-to-promote-charter-school-expansion/">indicated where he stands on federal K-12 funding</a>.</p>
<p>Funding increases of this scale would transform the <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-role-in-education-has-a-long-history-74807">federal role in education policy</a>, making it easier for school districts to <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-gap-2018/">pay teachers higher wages</a> while <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-much-of-a-difference-does-the-number-of-kids-in-a-classroom-make-125703">reducing class sizes</a>. This focus on funding would mark a departure from previous administrations, which instead emphasized policies intended to increase <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml">accountability</a> and strengthen <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html">teacher evaluation</a>.</p>
<p>As a scholar of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=F8pdFSgAAAAJ&hl=en">school finance</a>, I study the role of resources in schools. The <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w25368">research</a> is clear that <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20150249">spending more</a> <a href="https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/EDFP_a_00236">on students</a> over the long haul would bring about <a href="https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/131/1/157/2461148">long-term benefits</a>.</p>
<h2>Only 8%</h2>
<p>The federal government spends a total of about <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_235.10.asp?current=yes">$55 billion per year on K-12</a> education, in addition to outlays for <a href="http://nieer.org/state-preschool-yearbooks">early childhood</a> and post-secondary programs like loans and grants for <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2017/03/07/federal-support-for-higher-education-comes-from-spending-programs-and-the-tax-code">college tuition</a>. This amounts to around $1,000 per K-12 student and <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_235.10.asp?current=yes">just 8%</a> of the total $700 billion it costs to run the nation’s public schools, which are mostly funded by state and local tax dollars.</p>
<p>Federal funding has <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_235.10.asp?current=yes">never surpassed 10%</a> of total public school funding, except from 2010 to 2012 when the federal government sought to reduce the <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/implementation.html">school spending cuts</a> <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/688011/summary">brought about during the Great Recession</a>.</p>
<p><iframe id="W04p2" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/W04p2/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The federal government has historically exerted influence in non-monetary ways. For example, under the <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-role-in-education-has-a-long-history-74807">No Child Left Behind Act</a> of 2001, President George W. Bush’s administration relied on standardized tests to hold schools accountable for student achievement. Schools that failed to make yearly progress on test scores faced <a href="https://education.findlaw.com/curriculum-standards-school-funding/what-happens-when-a-school-fails-to-make-adequate-yearly-progress.html">serious repercussions</a>, such as replacing the school staff or reopening the school as a charter school.</p>
<p>Former President Barack Obama’s Education Department used <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html">Race to the Top</a> – under which states competed for federal grants through a point system – and <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/nclb-waivers-timeline-and-glossary-of-terms.html">other initiatives</a> to get states to adopt a specific set of policies regarding teacher hiring, promotion and dismissal that the Education Department said would help schools employ better teachers overall.</p>
<p>Obama also signed the <a href="https://www.ed.gov/essa">Every Student Succeeds Act</a> into law <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-every-student-succeeds-act-still-leaves-most-vulnerable-kids-behind-46247">in 2015</a>. It scaled back many of these policies and returned authority over accountability back to <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/this-weeks-essa-news-maryland-releases-second-year-of-school-ratings-school-climate-surveys-emerging-as-accountability-measure-looking-ahead-to-reauthorization-more/">individual states</a>.</p>
<p>These initiatives have two things in common. All of them have been longer on mandates than money, and it’s unclear that any have worked. Some <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10009-1.html">major studies</a> <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20174001/">failed to find</a> substantial impacts and educators have <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2019/10/most_states_have_walked_back_tough_teacher_evaluation_policies_report.html">largely opposed</a> using student test scores to drive high-stakes staffing decisions. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Testing, testing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Washington-Legislature/f206331a6ae14c048d718d5dc8dc8b2e/4/0">AP Photo/Ted S. Warren</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Graphic concerns</h2>
<p>One source of opposition to increasing spending on public schools is a <a href="http://www.shankerinstitute.org/blog/we-cant-graph-our-way-out-research-education-spending">now</a>-<a href="https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/smart-guy-gates-makes-my-list-of-dumbest-stuff-ive-ever-read/">infamous</a> <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2018/04/13/why-the-school-spending-graph-betsy-devos-is-sharing-doesnt-mean-what-she-says-it-does/">graph</a> that traces the rise of this spending on a per-student basis over the past 40 years, while test scores have remained stagnant. The juxtaposition of these two trend lines, opponents of higher spending say, suggests that more funding is not the answer.</p>
<p>Versions of this chart often appear in <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/public-school-spending-theres-chart">libertarian</a>, <a href="https://www.alec.org/article/increasing-education-spending-equal-higher-test-scores/">conservative</a> and <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bill-gates-school-performance_b_829771">mainstream</a> outlets.</p>
<p>Education Secretary <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2018/04/13/why-the-school-spending-graph-betsy-devos-is-sharing-doesnt-mean-what-she-says-it-does/">Betsy DeVos tweeted</a> a version of the graph and later <a href="https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/statement-secretary-devos-2019-naep-results">declared</a> that the “gap between the highest- and lowest-performing students is widening, despite $1 trillion in federal spending over 40 years.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"984534888941604864"}"></div></p>
<p>I find DeVos’ statement and the graph she was talking about misleading.</p>
<p>A simple comparison of two trends does not necessarily mean that one causes the other. I also think this line of argument becomes potentially dangerous when policymakers use it to <a href="https://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-education/2016/07/what-the-republican-platform-says-about-education-215401">justify under-investing in public education</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year would <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2020/02/trump-slash-education-funding-merge-block-grant-charter-schools-title-I.html">reduce federal K-12 spending</a>.</p>
<h2>More spending on white kids</h2>
<p>The significant increase in Title I funding Sanders, Warren, Biden and other candidates propose could partly address a problem that all the leading <a href="http://schottfoundation.org/2020-presidential-forum-public-education">Democratic presidential candidates agree</a> requires urgent action: substantial <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102%2F0013189X16670899">funding</a> <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/688011/summary">inequities</a> in public schools.</p>
<p>Despite a widespread stated <a href="https://ccsso.org/resource-library/leading-equity-opportunities-state-education-chiefs">commitment to equity</a>, many states <a href="http://www.shankerinstitute.org/resource/adequacy-and-fairness-state-school-finance-systems">actually spend less</a> in high-poverty school districts than in more affluent communities.</p>
<p>In addition, students of color attend schools that receive, on average, <a href="https://edbuild.org/content/23-billion">$2,200 less per student</a> from state coffers compared with the schools predominantly enrolling white students. </p>
<p>Of course, finding a way to pay for these spending increases through new tax dollars or cuts to other priorities would be a challenge. But there is probably no way to address the challenges facing the nation’s public schools that doesn’t involve significant increases in funding, targeted to places where most students are <a href="https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/how-does-level-education-relate-poverty">growing up in poverty</a>.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on <a href="https://theconversation.com/democratic-presidential-hopefuls-are-promising-to-ramp-up-funding-for-public-schools-123136">December 18, 2019</a>.</em></p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131739/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David S. Knight receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the W. T. Grant Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the American School Counselor Association.</span></em></p>Biden, Sanders, Warren and other candidates are calling for far more federal spending for schools in low-income areas.David S. Knight, Assistant Professor of Education Finance and Policy, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1231362019-12-18T13:51:19Z2019-12-18T13:51:19ZDemocratic presidential hopefuls are promising to ramp up funding for public schools<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307278/original/file-20191216-123987-qp37l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sen. Elizabeth Warren would make universal preschool a federal priority.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Elizabeth-Warren/b6ee9e69c6d541a399ddcc646a1df726/9/0">AP Photo/Keith Srakocic</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Democratic presidential candidates are proposing bold <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2019/09/presidential-candidates-education-2020-teachers-student-debt-school-safety-funding.html">new approaches</a> to the <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html">federal government’s role</a> in public education. Former Vice President <a href="https://joebiden.com/education/">Joe Biden</a>, Sen. <a href="https://berniesanders.com/en/issues/reinvest-in-public-education/">Bernie Sanders</a> and Sen. <a href="https://corybooker.com/issues/public-education/corys-plan-for-a-great-public-school-in-every-community-and-opportunity-for-every-child/">Cory Booker</a> want to triple the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/EDFP_a_00103">US$15 billion</a> spent annually on <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/programs/titleiparta/index.html">Title I</a>, a program that sends federal dollars to high-poverty school districts.</p>
<p>Sen. <a href="https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/public-education">Elizabeth Warren</a> wants to go further and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2019/10/22/what-elizabeth-warrens-k-12-plan-reveals-about-education-politics-today/">quadruple funding for that same program</a>. She also wants to make quality <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/22/18234606/warren-child-care-universal-2020">child care and preschool</a> affordable or free for all American families with kids, along with <a href="https://www.foodservicedirector.com/operations/sen-elizabeth-warren-announces-plan-offer-free-universal-school-meals">free breakfast and lunch</a> for all public school students.</p>
<p>Other candidates have similar proposals to substantially increase funding for public education, including former Housing Secretary <a href="https://issues.juliancastro.com/people-first-education/">Julian Castro</a>, Sen. <a href="https://medium.com/@AmyforAmerica/amys-first-100-days-b7adf9f91262">Amy Klobuchar</a> and Mayor <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/12/07/mayor-pete-buttigieg-k-12-education-plan-charter-schools/">Pete Buttigieg</a>.</p>
<p>Funding increases of this scale would transform the <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-role-in-education-has-a-long-history-74807">federal role in education policy</a>, making it easier for school districts to <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-gap-2018/">pay teachers higher wages</a> while <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-much-of-a-difference-does-the-number-of-kids-in-a-classroom-make-125703">reducing class sizes</a>. This focus on funding would mark a departure from previous administrations, which instead emphasized policies intended to increase <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml">accountability</a> and strengthen <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html">teacher evaluation</a>.</p>
<p>As a scholar of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=F8pdFSgAAAAJ&hl=en">school finance</a>, I study the role of resources in schools. The <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w25368">research</a> is clear that <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20150249">spending more</a> <a href="https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/EDFP_a_00236">on students</a> over the long haul would bring about <a href="https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/131/1/157/2461148">long-term benefits</a>.</p>
<h2>Only 8%</h2>
<p>The federal government spends a total of about <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_235.10.asp?current=yes">$55 billion per year on K-12</a> education, in addition to outlays for <a href="http://nieer.org/state-preschool-yearbooks">early childhood</a> and post-secondary programs like loans and grants for <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2017/03/07/federal-support-for-higher-education-comes-from-spending-programs-and-the-tax-code">college tuition</a>. This amounts to around $1,000 per K-12 student and <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_235.10.asp?current=yes">just 8%</a> of the total $700 billion it costs to run the nation’s public schools, which are mostly funded by state and local tax dollars.</p>
<p>Federal funding has <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_235.10.asp?current=yes">never surpassed 10%</a> of total public school funding, except from 2010 to 2012 when the federal government sought to reduce the <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/implementation.html">school spending cuts</a> <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/688011/summary">brought about during the Great Recession</a>.</p>
<p><iframe id="W04p2" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/W04p2/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The federal government has historically exerted influence in nonmonetary ways. For example, under the <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-role-in-education-has-a-long-history-74807">No Child Left Behind Act</a> of 2001, President George W. Bush’s administration relied on standardized tests to hold schools accountable for student achievement. Schools that failed to make yearly progress on test scores faced <a href="https://education.findlaw.com/curriculum-standards-school-funding/what-happens-when-a-school-fails-to-make-adequate-yearly-progress.html">serious repercussions</a>, such as replacing the school staff or reopening the school as a charter school.</p>
<p>President Barack Obama’s Education Department used <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html">Race to the Top</a> – under which states competed for federal grants through a point system – and <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/nclb-waivers-timeline-and-glossary-of-terms.html">other initiatives</a> to get states to adopt a specific set of policies regarding teacher hiring, promotion and dismissal that the Education Department said would help schools employ better teachers overall.</p>
<p>Obama also signed the <a href="https://www.ed.gov/essa">Every Student Succeeds Act</a> into law <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-every-student-succeeds-act-still-leaves-most-vulnerable-kids-behind-46247">in 2015</a>. It scaled back many of these policies and returned authority over accountability back to <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/this-weeks-essa-news-maryland-releases-second-year-of-school-ratings-school-climate-surveys-emerging-as-accountability-measure-looking-ahead-to-reauthorization-more/">individual states</a>.</p>
<p>These initiatives have two things in common. All of them have been longer on mandates than money, and it’s unclear that any have worked. Some <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10009-1.html">major studies</a> <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20174001/">failed to find</a> substantial impacts and educators have <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2019/10/most_states_have_walked_back_tough_teacher_evaluation_policies_report.html">largely opposed</a> using student test scores to drive high-stakes staffing decisions. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307279/original/file-20191216-124004-z29661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Testing, testing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Washington-Legislature/f206331a6ae14c048d718d5dc8dc8b2e/4/0">AP Photo/Ted S. Warren</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Graphic concerns</h2>
<p>One source of opposition to increasing spending on public schools is a <a href="http://www.shankerinstitute.org/blog/we-cant-graph-our-way-out-research-education-spending">now</a>-<a href="https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/smart-guy-gates-makes-my-list-of-dumbest-stuff-ive-ever-read/">infamous</a> <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2018/04/13/why-the-school-spending-graph-betsy-devos-is-sharing-doesnt-mean-what-she-says-it-does/">graph</a> that traces the rise of this spending on a per-student basis over the past 40 years, while test scores have remained stagnant. The juxtaposition of these two trend lines, opponents of higher spending say, suggests that more funding is not the answer.</p>
<p>Versions of this chart often appear in <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/public-school-spending-theres-chart">libertarian</a>, <a href="https://www.alec.org/article/increasing-education-spending-equal-higher-test-scores/">conservative</a> and <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bill-gates-school-performance_b_829771">mainstream</a> outlets.</p>
<p>Education Secretary <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2018/04/13/why-the-school-spending-graph-betsy-devos-is-sharing-doesnt-mean-what-she-says-it-does/">Betsy DeVos tweeted</a> a version of the graph and later <a href="https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/statement-secretary-devos-2019-naep-results">declared</a> that the “gap between the highest- and lowest-performing students is widening, despite $1 trillion in federal spending over 40 years.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"984534888941604864"}"></div></p>
<p>I find DeVos’ statement and the graph she was talking about misleading.</p>
<p>A simple comparison of two trends does not necessarily mean that one causes the other. I also think this line of argument becomes potentially dangerous when policymakers use it to <a href="https://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-education/2016/07/what-the-republican-platform-says-about-education-215401">justify underinvesting in public education</a>.</p>
<h2>More spending on rich kids</h2>
<p>The significant increase in Title I funding Warren, Sanders, Biden and other candidates propose could partly address a problem that all the leading <a href="http://schottfoundation.org/2020-presidential-forum-public-education">Democratic presidential candidates agree</a> requires urgent action: substantial <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102%2F0013189X16670899">funding</a> <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/688011/summary">inequities</a> in public schools.</p>
<p>Despite a widespread stated <a href="https://ccsso.org/resource-library/leading-equity-opportunities-state-education-chiefs">commitment to equity</a>, many states <a href="http://www.shankerinstitute.org/resource/adequacy-and-fairness-state-school-finance-systems">actually spend less</a> in high-poverty school districts than in more affluent communities.</p>
<p>In addition, students of color attend schools that receive, on average, <a href="https://edbuild.org/content/23-billion">$2,200 less per student</a> from state coffers compared with the schools predominantly enrolling white students. </p>
<p>Of course, finding a way to pay for these spending increases through new tax dollars or cuts to other priorities would be a challenge. But there is probably no way to address the challenges facing the nation’s public schools that doesn’t involve significant increases in funding, targeted to places where most students are <a href="https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/how-does-level-education-relate-poverty">growing up in poverty</a>.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123136/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Knight receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the W. T. Grant Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the American School Counselor Association. </span></em></p>Biden, Sanders, Warren and other candidates are calling for a substantial and unprecedented spending boost.David S. Knight, Assistant Professor of Education Finance and Policy, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1282252019-12-04T02:34:19Z2019-12-04T02:34:19ZThe top ranking education systems in the world aren’t there by accident. Here’s how Australia can climb up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305063/original/file-20191203-70184-pexvt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hong Kong and Korea performed at the same level as Australia in reading in 2000, but outperformed Australia in 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The latest OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results show a long-term decline in reading, maths and science skills for Australian students. </p>
<p>In 2018, <a href="https://rd.acer.org/article/pisa-2018-australian-students-performance?utm_source=acer%20homepage&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=feature%20box">Australian 15 years olds performed </a> more than a year below those in 2003 in maths, about a year lower in reading than those in 2000 and a year worse in science than those in 2006.</p>
<p>PISA doesn’t test rote learning but how well 15-year-old students can <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-pisa-world-education-test-results-are-about-to-drop-is-australia-getting-worse-127011">problem solve</a> and apply their knowledge and skills to real world situations. </p>
<p>PISA also shows which countries are the highest performers and which are getting better in science, maths and reading. Singapore has been the highest scoring country in all areas since it joined testing in 2009. </p>
<p>The latest results show Australian students were three years behind Singapore in maths and three months behind in reading.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/aussie-students-are-a-year-behind-students-10-years-ago-in-science-maths-and-reading-127013">Aussie students are a year behind students 10 years ago in science, maths and reading</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang economic region (the participating regions of China) were three and a half years ahead of Australia in maths in 2018. Hong Kong performed at the same level as Australia in reading in 2000, but outperformed Australia in 2018.</p>
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<p>High performing systems invest relentlessly in their teachers. They focus on the same things Australian governments do – recruiting the best, training teachers well and giving them practical support and development. </p>
<p>But our <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/129_report_learning_from_the_best_main.pdf">2012 study</a> of four high performing East Asian systems – Hong Kong, Korea, Shanghai (the region of China that participated in PISA before 2015) and Singapore – showed they followed a much more intensive process of seeing these changes all the way through into the classroom.</p>
<h2>Hong Kong made big reforms to reading in five years</h2>
<p>Hong Kong performed at the same level as Australia in reading in 2000. But between 2001 and 2006, it used a series of deliberate reforms to go up from 17th to second place in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study <a href="https://www.acer.org/au/pirls">(PIRLS)</a>. </p>
<p>First, they re-examined their teaching approaches, more specifically how to best teach reading. Researchers from the University of Hong Kong developed a new approach to teach reading Chinese, based on an extensive review of learning theories. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-schools-reforms-that-will-lift-student-outcomes-61808">Three schools reforms that will lift student outcomes</a>
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<p>Called the “integrative perceptual approach”, the teaching strategy moves away from memorising single Chinese characters to integrating the way students perceive the meaning and structure of Chinese in reading, writing and using language. </p>
<p>They then made an intensive effort to help teachers shift practice. </p>
<p>This included:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>researchers explicitly training thousands of principals and teachers in the new teaching techniques</p></li>
<li><p>schools and teachers being supported to adopt the new approach through seminars, new teaching materials, sample lesson plans, as well as on-the-job support from curriculum experts and research academics</p></li>
<li><p>teachers having good access to peer support through classroom observation and teacher networks </p></li>
<li><p>parents being engaged to create a good home reading environment.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>This is not a case of improvement through government control. Hong Kong provides a high level of school autonomy similar to Australia. But systematic government policies made it easy for schools and teachers to improve how they taught reading, resulting in large shifts in teaching practice. </p>
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<h2>Singapore focused on teacher quality</h2>
<p>Since Singapore gained independence in 1965, it has transformed from a poverty-stricken country to one of Asia’s great success stories. Its schools are among the best-performing in the world. </p>
<p>This is a result of intentional government policies that treat its teachers as professional partners. </p>
<p>Singapore invests heavily in recruiting bright people to teaching. The selection process is tough, with only one in ten applicants selected, but their key to success is encouraging many young people to apply. </p>
<p>For example, the Ministry of Education pays student teachers a generous stipend during their initial teacher training – an approach we recommended in our <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/attracting-high-achievers-to-teaching/">latest report</a> as one of best ways to attract more bright young people to teaching in Australia.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-main-challenges-facing-teacher-education-in-australia-63658">What are the main challenges facing teacher education in Australia?</a>
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<p>Singapore also reformed its teacher pay and career structures in 2000 to help make it a more attractive career choice. It raised teachers’ pay for new positions (equivalent to vice-principal pay and above), created a new system of teacher performance management, and tied it to teacher development and professional learning.</p>
<p>Singapore also introduced elite “master teacher” positions. A teacher can reach such a status based on outstanding performance in their subject field. Master teachers became the teaching leaders in their subjects, helping set directions and connect schools to the best research. </p>
<p>Master teachers also mentor senior teachers in schools, who in turn help other teachers improve through regular classroom observations, research groups, professional learning communities and mentoring.</p>
<h2>What Australia can do</h2>
<p>Hong Kong, Singapore and other high performing systems did not stumble into PISA success by chance. They did it by design. We can do it too.</p>
<p>Teachers have the biggest impact on <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/investing-in-our-teachers-investing-in-our-economy/">student learning</a> outside of family and home influences. Looking at Hong Kong and Singapore, we can improve teaching effectiveness by better attracting high achievers to teaching and providing better career and development support. </p>
<p>We must start by getting a much better understanding of the problem. This means re-examining how we teach maths, science and reading. This is fundamental to getting the right teaching supports in place, so improving practice is easy to do, not harder.</p>
<p>For Australia to improve, it is not about radically changing policy directions, or doing one thing differently. Instead, Australia must do many things better; much, much better. We must do them more systematically and with more intensity. </p>
<p>The devil is in the detail, and in implementation. </p>
<p><em>Grattan Institute’s forthcoming report in early 2020 will examine what Australia can do to improve teaching through better workforce structures.</em></p>
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<p><em>This story previously referred to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study as the Program of International Reading Literacy, as well as it being run by the OECD. This has now been updated.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128225/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Sonnemann is a Board Member of the Song Room.</span></em></p>High performing systems focus on the same things Australian governments do, but they work much more intensively on making these things happen.Julie Sonnemann, Fellow, Grattan InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1254662019-10-18T11:22:29Z2019-10-18T11:22:29ZThe Chicago teachers’ strike isn’t just about kids – it’s about union power too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297568/original/file-20191017-98648-1d02q0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chicago's teachers are on strike for the first time since 2012.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Chicago-Schools-Strike/8370c6493d614f0ab916e55ac439e8a4/2/0">AP Photo/Martha Irvine</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Classes in Chicago’s public schools were canceled starting Oct. 17 as more than 25,000 teachers in the nation’s <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2019/comm/largest-school-districts.html">third-largest school district</a> went on strike in what they’re calling a fight for “<a href="https://abc7chicago.com/education/live-thousands-of-striking-cps-teachers-hit-picket-lines-across-city-/5625169/">justice and equity</a>” for their students.</p>
<p>The strike, the city’s first in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2012/09/19/us/illinois-chicago-teachers-strike/index.html">seven years</a>, marks what has been a tumultuous year for labor negotiations in urban school districts around the country. Thirty thousand Los Angeles school teachers went on a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/22/us/los-angeles-teachers-strike-day-6/index.html">six-day strike</a> in January. The next month, approximately 2,600 teachers walked out of the classroom for <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/2/14/18224848/denver-teachers-strike-over-deal">three days in Denver</a>, and 3,000 teachers picketed for <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/4/18249872/oakland-teachers-strike-pay-raise">a week in Oakland</a>.</p>
<p>Many of the demands the unions are making almost certainly would benefit students. But beneath the rallying cries, these unions are facing a new reality that suggests they are also fighting for something else.</p>
<p>In 2018, the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-1466">Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME</a> that workers are free to choose whether to join a union. Since then, we’d argue, teacher strikes have been as much a fight for the soul of the union as they are for the soul of public education. What the teachers’ unions want and need is membership. </p>
<p>The deals that teachers’ unions negotiate with school districts matter more than ever for maintaining their membership and political power in the post-Janus world. As education policy scholars who have studied <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JAZULk0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">teachers’ unions</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NDkwqOQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">teacher collective bargaining</a> for more than a decade, we have read thousands of agreements like the ones negotiated in <a href="https://www.utla.net/news/tentative-agreement-2019">Los Angeles</a>, <a href="https://denverteachers.org/we-fight-we-win/">Denver</a> and <a href="https://oaklandea.org/updates/oea-reaches-tentative-agreement-with-ousd/">Oakland</a> in early 2019 and will soon be forged in Chicago.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Parents and students joined striking Los Angeles Unified District teachers in front of Evelyn Thurman Gratts Elementary School in Los Angeles in January 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Los-Angeles-Teachers-Strike/0184d7cb63254905a8a32ac0094aa005/36/0">Richard Vogel</a></span>
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<h2>Negotiating for numbers</h2>
<p>What does negotiating for membership look like?</p>
<p>The agreements that unions are securing establish teacher salaries, restrictions on the length of the workday, performance evaluation procedures and other important working conditions. But they also set staffing levels for teachers, librarians, nurses and counselors. In short, teachers are bargaining to increase staffing – and in particular, staff who can also join the union. If they can increase staffing, they can increase membership and ensure their future. </p>
<p>With a 16% raise on the table, the Chicago Teachers’ Union <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/10/16/20918124/chicago-teachers-union-strike-cps-public-schools-house-delegates">is asking</a> for a contract that guarantees smaller class sizes. With fewer students in each classroom, the school system will need to employ more teachers. In addition, the union aims to increase the number of nonteaching staff employed, such as nurses, librarians, social workers and counselors. All of these new hires will be potential union members.</p>
<p>Consider the <a href="https://www.utla.net/news/tentative-agreement-2019">three-year deal</a> that the teachers’ union secured in Los Angeles in January. Along with a 6% salary increase, the deal included numerous staffing guarantees that equate to more membership for the Los Angeles teachers’ union: 300 nurses, 82 librarians and 77 counselors. Because the contract reduced class size by four students in grades 4 through 12 over the duration of the contract, it requires the school district to add new teachers.</p>
<p>The Oakland teachers’ union followed a similar playbook for their <a href="https://oaklandea.org/updates/oea-reaches-tentative-agreement-with-ousd/">four-year deal</a> in February. The union secured an 11% raise over the next four years and a modest reduction in class size by the 2021-22 school year. Additionally, the new contract lowers the counselor-to-student ratio, establishes new caseload limits for school psychologists and speech and language pathologists and increases staffing levels at schools with 50 or more students who are new to the country.</p>
<p>All of those provisions require the district to add more educators. </p>
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<span class="caption">Teachers, students and supporters rallied in front of City Hall in Oakland, California, in February 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Oakland-Teachers-Strike/99b9ba96c9fc4ec9bfd16e13c8bc4beb/6/0">AP Photo/Jeff Chiu</a></span>
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<h2>Organizing charter school teachers</h2>
<p>Not only are teachers’ unions fighting for increased staffing levels, they are using contract negotiations to limit the transfer of teachers to <a href="https://www.educationdive.com/news/as-teacher-protests-escalate-non-union-educators-express-mixed-feelings/554282/">nonunion schools</a> that pose a threat to their membership levels.</p>
<p>The unions in Los Angeles and Oakland took a hard stance on charter schools in their negotiations. In Los Angeles, the teachers’ union <a href="https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/UTLA-talks-Charter-School-LAUSD-Strike-approaching-503401771.html">called for</a> an eight- to 10-month moratorium on new charter schools, something the local school board cannot provide. However, the Los Angeles Unified School District <a href="https://www.utla.net/news/school-board-approves-moratorium-charters">agreed to endorse</a> such a moratorium and lobby California’s governor to that end.</p>
<p>The Oakland teachers’ union secured a nearly identical commitment from the school district to lobby the state legislature for the same moratorium. A final <a href="https://www.cta.org/Issues-and-Action/Charter-Schools.aspx">union-backed bill</a>, which stopped short of a full stop on new charters but which imposed new restrictions, received <a href="https://edsource.org/2019/new-era-for-charter-schools-newsom-signs-bill-with-compromises-he-negotiated/618099">the California governor’s signature</a> in October. The Chicago teachers’ union secured <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/editorials/ct-chicago-charter-schools-teachers-union-edit-1026-20161025-story.html">a cap on charter school expansion</a> in their last contract negotiations in 2016. </p>
<p>Even while they attempt to limit charter growth, unions are seeking to <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/12/14/the-teachers-unions-have-a-charter-school.html">organize charter teachers</a>. The teachers at more than a quarter of Chicago’s 121 charter schools belong to the Chicago Teachers’ Union. A similar share of the 277 charter schools in Los Angeles are organized by its teachers’ union. Only two of Oakland’s 44 charters, however, are unionized.</p>
<p>The teachers at some of the charter schools in <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-met-acero-strike-agreement-20181209-story.html">Chicago</a> and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-edu-lausd-strike-accelerated-school-20190114-story.html">Los Angeles</a> went on strike in the past year, for the first in the nation’s history.</p>
<p>All in all, our rough calculations suggest that the <a href="https://achieve.lausd.net/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=4&ModuleInstanceID=45663&ViewID=6446EE88-D30C-497E-9316-3F8874B3E108&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=73638&PageID=1">staffing provisions</a> in the Los Angeles contract could have added over 1,500 members to the the Los Angeles teachers’ union’s membership. This would equate to about a 5% increase in the union’s ranks of at least <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/01/13/684645947/los-angeles-teachers-are-moving-forward-with-a-strike">30,000 educators</a>. The Oakland teachers’ union could be getting a similar boost.</p>
<h2>Gaining members</h2>
<p>It’s too early to tell what will happen in Chicago, but a contract with robust staffing guarantees will likely add membership to the union ranks. </p>
<p>In a post-Janus world, unions are showcasing the viability of the picket line as a way to win contracts that bolster membership. Not only that, but because only union members can vote to authorize a strike, union leadership can leverage strike votes to petition – or pressure – nonunion members to join the movement.</p>
<p>The Los Angeles union reports <a href="https://www.utla.net/sites/default/files/UTLA_PUB_Sept18-low-rez.pdf">adding over 1,000 members</a> during its strike vote. The Denver union says it <a href="https://www.cpr.org/news/story/the-strength-behind-the-denver-teacher-strike-is-the-unions-swelling-membership">added 250</a> during its authorization vote. </p>
<p>So why are teachers’ unions striking with increased frequency? We believe that unions are fighting for their survival.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on <a href="https://theconversation.com/teacher-unions-say-theyre-fighting-for-students-and-schools-what-they-really-want-is-more-members-112735">March 4, 2019</a>.</em></p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>To fund her work on teachers' unions and CBAs, Katharine O. Strunk has received research funding from several philanthropic entities, including Arnold Ventures, the Spencer Foundation, the Walton foundation and an anonymous foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bradley D. Marianno does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Teachers’ unions often say they go on strike to improve conditions for students. A closer look at recent walkouts suggests they are also fighting for something else: membership.Bradley D. Marianno, Assistant Professor of Educational Policy & Leadership, University of Nevada, Las VegasKatharine O. Strunk, Professor of Education Policy and Economics, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1227822019-09-02T19:52:34Z2019-09-02T19:52:34ZThree charts on teachers’ pay in Australia: it starts out OK, but goes downhill pretty quickly<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290452/original/file-20190902-175705-gc8v32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C495%2C4255%2C2398&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If you want to earn a high income in Australia, you’re often better off having no degree than having a bachelor degree in teaching.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Monkey Business Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Depending on who you ask, our teachers are either some of the <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/education/longer-hours-but-aussie-teachers---among-best-paid-says-oecd/news-story/4fc17d1e3eed42a95e1fae6d490911ff">best paid</a> in the world, or they’re <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/why-we-need-to-pay-teachers-more-20160602-gp9j9g.html">underpaid</a>.</p>
<p>Here are the facts: Australian teachers get a very decent starting salary, but their pay quickly falls behind that of other professionals.</p>
<p>Getting teacher pay right is crucial to attracting the best and brightest to the classroom, so it’s important to debunk a few myths.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/better-pay-and-more-challenge-heres-how-to-get-our-top-students-to-become-teachers-122271">Better pay and more challenge: here's how to get our top students to become teachers</a>
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<hr>
<h2>How to measure a teacher’s pay</h2>
<p>We should not fall into the trap of comparing Australia’s teacher salaries to other countries using dollar amounts, even after taking account of the cost of living. Australia is a rich country. Our incomes are relatively high, and our education system is competing with other industries to attract the best talent.</p>
<p>Chart 1 compares teachers’ pay with the pay of similar-aged professionals in Australia. Chart 2 shows how those numbers compare to other countries. </p>
<p>But average pay is not the only factor, so Chart 3 looks at what opportunity there is for Australian teachers to earn a very high income.</p>
<h2>Young teachers are paid well, but expertise is not rewarded</h2>
<p>The starting full-time salary for a classroom teacher in most Australian <a href="https://www.nswtf.org.au/files/schools_and_saturday_schools_award_381_ig_237.pdf">states</a> is between $65,000 and $70,000, based on every enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) we examined. </p>
<p>That’s reasonably competitive with the starting salary of a graduate with an engineering, commerce, or law degree, and has been <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp12027.pdf">improving</a> over the past 15 years.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290420/original/file-20190902-166014-1lebg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290420/original/file-20190902-166014-1lebg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290420/original/file-20190902-166014-1lebg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290420/original/file-20190902-166014-1lebg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290420/original/file-20190902-166014-1lebg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290420/original/file-20190902-166014-1lebg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290420/original/file-20190902-166014-1lebg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290420/original/file-20190902-166014-1lebg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Includes people who studied a teaching degree but now work as principals. ‘No degree’ includes all levels of education below bachelor. Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016 Census)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/censushome.nsf/home/tablebuilder?opendocument&navpos=240">Grattan Institute</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The trouble is that teacher pay doesn’t rise much with age or expertise. The pay scale for a classroom teacher stops rising after about nine years, while the incomes of their university educated peers in other professions keep rising well into their 30s and 40s.</p>
<p>It’s not like this in every country. Other countries reward teacher expertise with higher pay relative to other professionals. So while Australia’s pay for young secondary teachers <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/education-at-a-glance-2018_eag-2018-en">is in the top half</a> of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, Australia’s pay for older secondary teachers is in the bottom half.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290424/original/file-20190902-165981-1iwoex9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290424/original/file-20190902-165981-1iwoex9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290424/original/file-20190902-165981-1iwoex9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290424/original/file-20190902-165981-1iwoex9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290424/original/file-20190902-165981-1iwoex9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290424/original/file-20190902-165981-1iwoex9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290424/original/file-20190902-165981-1iwoex9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290424/original/file-20190902-165981-1iwoex9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most countries’ figures are from 2016 but some are from 2015. Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report, Education at a Glance (2018).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.oecd.org/education/education-at-a-glance/">Grattan Institute</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Any high-income Australian teachers?</h2>
<p>People with a teaching degree in Australia have almost no chance of earning a very high income. </p>
<p>More than a third of engineering or commerce graduates in their 40s working full-time earn more than $3,000 a week ($156,000 a year).</p>
<p>But for graduates with a teaching degree, that figure is only 2.3%. As Chart 3 shows, if you want to earn a really high income in Australia, you’re often better off having no degree than having a bachelor degree in teaching.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290429/original/file-20190902-166009-vwfoyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290429/original/file-20190902-166009-vwfoyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290429/original/file-20190902-166009-vwfoyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290429/original/file-20190902-166009-vwfoyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290429/original/file-20190902-166009-vwfoyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290429/original/file-20190902-166009-vwfoyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290429/original/file-20190902-166009-vwfoyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290429/original/file-20190902-166009-vwfoyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Includes people whose work is unrelated to their degree. $156,000 is chosen because it is the highest income bracket in the Census. Doctors are much more likely to earn more than $156,000, but ‘medical studies’ also includes some other degrees. Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016 Census).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Grattan Institute</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Teacher pay matters. Most young people who did well at school are interested in becoming a teacher – but most of them are turned off by the big financial sacrifices teaching involves.</p>
<p>A Grattan Institute <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/attracting-high-achievers-to-teaching/">survey</a> of almost 1,000 young high achievers (aged 18-25 and with an ATAR of 80 or higher) found about 70% said they would be willing to give teaching a go.</p>
<p>But university enrolment data show that only about 3% of high achievers actually choose teaching for their undergraduate studies.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-make-good-arguments-at-school-and-everywhere-else-121305">How to make good arguments at school (and everywhere else)</a>
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<p>Our new report, <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/attracting-high-achievers-to-teaching/">Attracting high achievers to teaching</a>, proposes a $1.6 billion-a-year reform package for government schools to double the number of high-achieving young people who choose to become teachers within a decade.</p>
<p>The package includes $10,000-a-year scholarships for high achievers who take up teaching, and new career paths for expert teachers with pay of up to $180,000 a year. That’s about $80,000 more than the current highest standard pay rate for teachers in Australia.</p>
<p>If governments were to implement our blueprint, it would send a strong message to Australia’s best and brightest – if you want a challenging career where expertise is celebrated and paid accordingly, choose teaching.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122782/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and Grattan uses the income to pursue its activities.</span></em></p>Teachers get paid a decent starting salary but they soon fall behind other professionals the longer they stay in the job.Jonathan Nolan, Associate, Grattan InstituteJulie Sonnemann, Fellow, Grattan InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1167722019-05-08T16:05:44Z2019-05-08T16:05:44ZUber drivers strike and the future of labor: 4 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273351/original/file-20190508-183103-144comx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Uber drivers protest outside of the New York Stock Exchange.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Uber-Lyft-Strike/fcbe91999aa140aeb2c5728bd56366db/2/0">AP Photo/Mark Lennihan</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Uber drivers across the globe <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/7/18528512/uber-driver-strike-gig-economy-labor-dilemma">logged out of their company’s app</a> for several hours on May 8 to protest its compensation policies. </p>
<p>Strikes occurred in at least eight U.S. cities including New York and San Francisco as well as places as far-flung as London and Melbourne. They were timed to precede Uber’s huge initial public offering.</p>
<p>Drivers are demanding better job security and higher wages. Their status as independent contractors often denies them some employee rights. And <a href="https://www.ridester.com/2018-survey/#introduction">studies show</a> many drivers earn less than $10 an hour after expenses. </p>
<p>The walkout raises questions about the future of worker mobilization in the age of the gig economy. Here are four stories from The Conversation archive that offer lessons for today’s worker activists.</p>
<h2>1. 1919 Seattle strike offers hope</h2>
<p>A century ago, 35,000 shipyard workers and 25,000 other union members – roughly a fifth of Seattle’s population – walked off their jobs to demand higher wages. </p>
<p>The Seattle General Strike of 1919 shut down a major U.S. city, inspired a rock opera, provoked fears Russian Bolsheviks were trying to overthrow American capitalism and, ultimately, was an abject failure in achieving its ends, wrote University of Oregon history professor Steven C. Beda. Yet the incident <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-seattle-general-strike-of-1919-should-inspire-a-new-generation-of-labor-activists-111238">offers “surprisingly hopeful” lessons</a> for today’s striking teachers, Uber drivers and others, he argued. </p>
<p>“It had proven to workers, both in Seattle and elsewhere, that there was power in unity, however fleeting,” Beda recalled. “For five days, workers had shut down the city and then run it themselves.</p>
<p>"For today’s workers tired of decades of wage stagnation and fleeting benefits in the gig economy, the Seattle General Strike offers an important lesson about the power of organized laborers: When united, workers can take on the most powerful foes,” he wrote.</p>
<h2>2. Google and the power of customers</h2>
<p>Late last year, thousands of Google employees staged a walkout to demand changes to the way their company handles sexual harassment complaints. The company pledged to overhaul its policies.</p>
<p>The grievances that motivated the protest, the first of its kind by well-paid and benefit-rich high-tech workers, were “emblematic of what’s prompting millions of American workers to feel they have lost their voice,” argued Thomas Kochan, a professor of management at MIT. </p>
<p>To find it again, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-googles-employees-walked-out-and-what-it-could-mean-for-the-future-of-labor-106305">they should look to a similar walkout</a> by employees of Massachusetts-based Market Basket in 2014, which Kochan called the “most successful strike of the 21st century.” The employees won their battle because of strong customer support, a strategy Google workers should follow, he wrote. </p>
<p>“Although labor law won’t protect them, they might be able to use the hundreds of millions of Google’s customers – of its search engine, email program or mobile phone software – to pressure executives to negotiate in good faith,” he wrote. They “could not only end up changing their company’s policy on harassment, but become the vanguard that could help disrupt U.S. labor law in the process.”</p>
<h2>3. Teachers fighting for social justice</h2>
<p>Teachers in several cities in the U.S., including Oakland, California, also went on strike last year. </p>
<p>While low teacher pay was one of the motivations, <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-behind-the-teacher-strikes-unions-focus-on-social-justice-not-just-salaries-111490">they were also protesting</a> the lack of funding for student resources. And in the process, they enlisted the help of student and community groups and focused on racial justice, explained Rebecca Tarlau, an assistant professor of education and of labor and employment relations at Pennsylvania State University.</p>
<p>“All these actions have transformed the Oakland Education Association – and many other teachers’ unions across the country – into leaders of a social movement that has the potential of redefining public education, the labor movement and American politics,” she wrote.</p>
<h2>4. Risks of inaction</h2>
<p>Despite some success, the power of unions to represent workers has plummeted in recent decades as their ranks have dwindled. </p>
<p>MIT’s Kochan, a frequent contributor to The Conversation on the future of labor, also wrote about <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-we-ensure-the-next-generation-of-workers-isnt-worse-off-than-the-last-52110">three key questions that need to be answered</a> by all American workers, from high-tech Googlers and gig economy drivers and “taskers” to underpaid teachers. But he also warned of risks. </p>
<p>“Unless talk leads to actions to change the course of the economy and labor market, the next generation of workers is destined to experience a lower standard of living than their parents – the opposite of the American Dream,” Kochan argued.</p>
<p><em>This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116772/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The Uber driver walkout raises questions about how workers can fight for better pay and benefits in the age of the gig economy – a topic frequently on the minds of Conversation scholars.Bryan Keogh, Managing EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1163442019-05-03T10:44:16Z2019-05-03T10:44:16ZWhat other countries can teach the US about raising teacher pay<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272369/original/file-20190502-103057-1vpgzct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students listen to their teacher, Shuma Das, at the Sahabatpur Daspara Ananda school in Sahabatpur village, Bangladesh in 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/29688868763/in/album-72157601441433631/">Dominic Chavez/World Bank</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Teacher strikes swept the United States in 2018, from West Virginia to Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina and beyond. </p>
<p>The demands varied across states, but a raise in teacher pay was central to each. Now politicians are proposing large increases in teacher salaries at the <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/wolfs-plan-to-boost-teacher-salaries-faces-bipartisan-skepticism-in-pa-house/">state</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/26/18280734/kamala-harris-2020-election-policies-teachers-salaries">Sen. Kamala Harris’</a> has called for an average raise in teacher pay of US$13,500 – or more than 20% – in her first term, were she to be elected president. </p>
<p>What would a raise in teacher salaries accomplish? As one who has studied the economics of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ICQf6dsAAAAJ&hl=en">education around the world,</a> here’s what I know about what recent research on different countries that have boosted teacher pay says.</p>
<h2>What do teacher salaries do?</h2>
<p>People might think that raising teachers’ salaries will result in better learning for children. One reason is that higher teacher salaries might increase teachers’ effort. When teacher salaries are low, teachers may get a second job, reducing their energy and effort at teaching. Indeed, there are reports of teachers taking second jobs in <a href="http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/mar/24/many-area-teachers-work-multiple-jobs-to-maintain-/">Idaho</a>, <a href="https://www.pennlive.com/news/2019/03/teachers-having-to-hold-down-side-jobs-to-make-ends-meet-is-a-growing-concern-to-pa-lawmakers.html">Pennsylvania</a>, <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2019/04/03/texas-teachers-watch-anxiously-legislature-debates-their-pay/">Texas</a> and elsewhere. Higher teacher salaries might also increase learning if they draw more of the best and brightest college graduates into teaching.</p>
<p>Recent evidence from <a href="http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2018/07/03/jhr.55.1.0317.8619R1.abstract">more than 30 countries</a> shows a clear link between teachers with higher cognitive skills and subsequent student performance. And which countries have teachers with higher cognitive skills? Countries with <a href="http://hanushek.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Hanushek%2BPiopiunik%2BWiederhold_JHR.pdf#page=46">higher teacher salaries</a>. But the story is not that simple.</p>
<h2>Higher teacher salaries don’t boost effort</h2>
<p>Fifteen years ago, Indonesia <a href="https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/133/2/993/4622956?redirectedFrom=fulltext">embarked on a policy experiment</a> that shed new light on how salaries affect teacher effort. Over the course of 10 years, Indonesia raised salaries by more than a quarter for a subset of teachers. They randomized the roll-out across schools, which allowed researchers to compare schools that got the raises early on to schools that wouldn’t get the raises until much later. The result? Teachers were happier, and they were less likely to hold a second job. The reform initially decreased teacher absenteeism, but that effect disappeared by the second year. Student learning remained unchanged. </p>
<p>In Uruguay, <a href="https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/86972/1/MPRA_paper_86972.pdf">increasing teacher salaries</a> by about 25% for teachers working in poor neighborhoods had little to no impact on student learning. Similar studies show the same for programs in African countries, like <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp8621.pdf">the Gambia</a> and <a href="https://econrsa.org/publications/working-papers/teacher-pay-and-educational-outcomes-evidence-rural-hardship-allowance">Zambia</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272370/original/file-20190502-103068-ksj8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272370/original/file-20190502-103068-ksj8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272370/original/file-20190502-103068-ksj8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272370/original/file-20190502-103068-ksj8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272370/original/file-20190502-103068-ksj8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272370/original/file-20190502-103068-ksj8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272370/original/file-20190502-103068-ksj8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Kazadi, a 4th-grade teacher, asking his students questions at the St. Louis Primary School in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/8785371212/in/album-72157601441433631/">Dominic Chavez/World Bank.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Raising salaries attracts and keeps good teachers</h2>
<p>In Texas, increasing teacher pay <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047272713002119">reduced turnover</a>, which in turn increased student performance. Likewise, national studies from <a href="https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/003465300558894">the U.S.</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004727271500208X#bb0130">the U.K.</a> also find that students do better when teachers have relatively better wages. </p>
<p>Studies from Latin America have looked specifically at the pull factor of higher wages for civil servants – of which teachers are a subset. In Brazil, higher wages for civil servants <a href="https://eml.berkeley.edu/%7Effinan/Finan_MPoliticians.pdf">drew more educated candidates</a> into the service. In Mexico, higher salaries for civil servants attracted more candidates who were <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.295.2587">more conscientious and who had higher IQs</a>. But higher salaries also attract less qualified candidates. In education, one challenge is selecting those candidates who will go on to be great teachers, which brings us to the topic of higher standards for teachers.</p>
<h2>Reforms beyond just salary increases are needed</h2>
<p>What countries that have made large gains in learning have shown is that combining salary increases with other critical reforms is the way to success. </p>
<p>Setting higher standards to enter the teaching profession is a way to both pay teachers what they’re worth while making sure the very best candidates are teaching. Finland and Singapore, two countries known for high performance on international tests, have <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/20488/9781464801518.pdf#page=167">highly competitive entry</a> into the teaching profession. In both countries, a small fraction of applicants to teacher training schools are accepted, allowing teacher training schools to only accept those applicants with excellent academic credentials. By contrast, a recent study of teacher preparation graduate programs in the U.S. found that <a href="https://www.nctq.org/publications/2018-Teacher-Prep-Review">fewer than half required a 3.0 GPA</a>.</p>
<p>Ecuador provides a clear example of how <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/702609">increasing teacher selectivity can lead to gains</a>. Ecuador doubled teachers’ starting salaries in 2009. At around the same time, it introduced a national hiring exam and teacher evaluation systems, and it made getting into teacher training colleges and subsequently getting a job as a teacher more selective. The country also instituted incentives for high performing teachers. Ecuador went on to register the <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/702609?af=R&amp=&">highest student literacy gains</a> of any country in Latin America on regional tests conducted between 2006 and 2013.</p>
<p>In other countries, the key reforms may be different. </p>
<p><a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/2383/656590REPLACEM0hieving0World0Class0.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">Brazil registered large learning gains</a> in the first decade of this century after a <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/lessons-from-pisa-for-the-united-states/brazil-encouraging-lessons-from-a-large-federal-system_9789264096660-9-en">series of reforms in the 1990s</a>. These reforms increased teacher salaries while also increasing the educational requirements to become a teacher, expanding in-service support for teachers, ensuring more financing for rural schools, and later, introducing better measurement and publicity around student learning results. </p>
<p>Kenya recently saw <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10833-018-9325-4">student learning rise</a> with a nationwide program that included detailed teachers’ guides, professional development and coaching for teachers.</p>
<h2>The optimal education system</h2>
<p>In a recent study, the World Bank highlighted how many education systems seem to be <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/28340/211096ov.pdf">stuck in a low-learning trap</a>, where teachers and schools lack both the support and the motivation to give students what they need. Low teacher salaries, together with inadequate support for teachers and little selectivity in teacher preparation, can keep U.S. schools far below their potential. But increased pay is not enough. As experiences from around the world show, higher pay must be accompanied by an array of other reforms – ranging from increased selectivity into the field to more mentoring and coaching to help teachers already in the field give their best to our students.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116344/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In addition to his work at the Pardee RAND Graduate School of Public Policy, David Evans is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development. </span></em></p>Research from around the world shows that boosting teacher pay can lead to better student learning, but only if it’s accompanied by other things.David Evans, Professor of Public Policy, Pardee RAND Graduate SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1143972019-04-11T10:43:28Z2019-04-11T10:43:28ZAre America’s teachers really underpaid?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268686/original/file-20190410-2914-12juxv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teachers rally outside the Arizona Capitol in April 2018 during a strike over low salaries.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Teacher-Protests/87e7cda12f1f47d39a92290c32d56865/22/0">Matt York/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the spring of 2018, thousands of public school teachers <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/02/14/with-teachers-lead-more-workers-went-strike-than-any-year-since/">walked out of their classrooms in a half-dozen states</a>, protesting <a href="https://www.wtrf.com/news/west-virginia-headlines/look-back-2018-west-virginia-teachers-strike-for-better-pay/1681229798">low salaries</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/04/02/fed-up-with-school-spending-cuts-oklahoma-teachers-prepare-to-walk-out/">rising class sizes</a> and <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/a-punishing-decade-for-school-funding">cuts to school budgets</a> that have prompted most teachers to <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/datapoints/2018097.asp">buy their own classroom supplies</a>.</p>
<p>Additional strikes followed in 2019 in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/us/la-teacher-strike-deal.html">Los Angeles</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/2/14/18224848/denver-teachers-strike-over-deal">Denver</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/4/18249872/oakland-teachers-strike-pay-raise">Oakland</a>.</p>
<p>While these walkouts, which enjoyed <a href="http://pdkpoll.org/results/teacher-pay-would-you-support-a-teacher-strike">much public support</a>, were about more than teacher pay, <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-gap-2018/">stagnant teacher salaries</a> were central issues.</p>
<p>And political leaders have taken notice. For example, presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris, a Democrat from California, has made <a href="https://chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/03/26/kamala-harris-teacher-pay-proposal/">boosting teacher salaries</a> a part of her campaign. Her <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-harris/kamala-harris-courts-unions-minorities-with-call-to-raise-teacher-pay-idUSKCN1R70Z8">plan would allocate US$315 billion</a> in federal funding over the next decade to increase pay for public school teachers and reward state and local governments for raising pay even higher, with the goal of eventually boosting teacher pay by an average of $13,500 per person. The proposal, which has been hailed as “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/kamala-harris-unveils-315-billion-plan-boost-teacher-pay-n987171">the largest investment in teachers in American history</a>” and <a href="https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/kamala-harris-comes-out-swinging-education-and-she-picks-unions-over-students">criticized as a pitch for teacher union endorsements</a>, would be paid for by as-yet unspecified increases in the estate tax. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1109897923469426689"}"></div></p>
<p>From my standpoint as an expert on educational leadership and policy and as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=WA3k8iWeYxgC&pg=PA275&lpg=PA275&dq=assistant+state+superintendent+for+research+and+policy+in+the+Michigan+Department+of+Education+addonizio&source=bl&ots=W-9A-ZhNfN&sig=ACfU3U2I07PP0QOUSdS3apVT8ZEZf1lheA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjIr6jg_9zgAhWRGt8KHZuYD6EQ6AEwAXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=assistant%20state%20superintendent%20for%20research%20and%20policy%20in%20the%20Michigan%20Department%20of%20Education%20addonizio&f=false">former assistant state superintendent for research and policy</a> in the Michigan Department of Education, I see teachers as the most important resource in schools. Teachers’ impact on students <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w19424">persists into adulthood</a>. Recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers in the nation’s public schools requires <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41238549?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">good working conditions</a>, including competent and supportive leadership and a collegial environment. But pay matters.</p>
<h2>Teacher salaries decline over time</h2>
<p>Classroom teaching has never been a path to riches and, perhaps more than other professionals, teachers view their work more as a calling than as a way to make a good living. Still, teaching must compete with other occupations for talent. So how does teacher pay compare with the pay of other professions that require a similar education? By this comparison, <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-gap-2018/">teacher pay has been eroding for decades</a>.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-gap-2018/">an Economic Policy Institute study</a>, the teacher “wage penalty” – how much less teachers make than comparable workers – grew from 5.5% in 1979 to a record 18.7% in 2017.</p>
<p>Teacher wage gaps vary widely from state to state, but <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-gap-2018/">in no state does teacher pay equal or exceed</a> pay for other college graduates. And it’s no coincidence that the four states with the largest gaps – Arizona, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Colorado – saw teacher protests in 2018.</p>
<p>In some states, teacher salaries have been so low that teachers have <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/reports/2014/07/23/94168/">qualified for public assistance</a>.</p>
<h2>Fair comparisons?</h2>
<p>How can teachers’ earnings be compared to those of non-teachers when teachers get summers off? The answer: Compare weekly wages. For example, a public school teacher in the U.S. with a bachelor’s degree <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-gap-2018/">earned an average of $980 per week</a> between 2013 and 2017, while a comparable non-teaching college graduate averaged $1,326. </p>
<p>Some may argue that teachers, on average, work fewer hours per week than other college graduates. However, a leading teachers’ union says that teachers often <a href="http://www.nea.org/home/12661.htm">work longer</a> than their contracted work day.</p>
<p>What about teacher benefits? Instead of pay raises, are school districts giving their teachers generous benefit packages? No. While teacher benefits have accounted for a rising share of their total compensation as salaries have stalled and constitute a bigger share as compared with other professionals, this “benefit advantage” <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/book_teaching_penalty/">only partially offsets the teacher wage penalty</a>.</p>
<p>Even teacher pension plans, often criticized as overly generous and costly to taxpayers, are now found to be <a href="https://www.teacherpensions.org/resource/insufficient-how-state-pension-plans-leave-teachers-inadequate-retirement-savings">inadequate in many states</a>. In Massachusetts, for instance, teacher contributions to pensions plans will actually <a href="http://www.teacherpensions.org/sites/default/files/TeacherPensions_Negative%20Returns_Final.pdf">exceed their benefits</a> no matter how long they stay in teaching.</p>
<p>In 39 states, the average teacher salary <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2018/09/05/teachers-arent-getting-younger-were-just-paying-them-less/">declined</a> 2010 and 2016 when you take inflation into account. And these declines were not the result of teacher turnover, with retiring and relatively well-paid baby boomers being replaced by entry-level millennials. A 2018 Brookings study found that teachers were <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2018/09/05/teachers-arent-getting-younger-were-just-paying-them-less/">more qualified in 2016 than in 2007</a>. Teachers were older and more educated, with greater proportions holding master’s and doctoral degrees, the Brookings study found.</p>
<p>The pay gap gives rise to <a href="https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/coming-crisis-teaching">teacher shortages</a>. These shortages do not show up as actual vacancies or empty classrooms. Rather, they appear as underqualified teachers – that is, more positions filled by teachers lacking full credentials and holding only temporary or “emergency” licenses. Shortages in math and science have been a <a href="https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/coming-crisis-teaching">chronic problem</a> for public schools, as non-teaching options have been much more lucrative for candidates in these fields.</p>
<p>Solving the teacher shortage problem, which <a href="https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/coming-crisis-teaching">afflicts every state</a> to varying degrees, will require more than boosting teacher pay across the board. It will also take improving teachers’ working conditions, giving them more manageable class sizes and adding more support staff, such as psychologists, social workers, nurses and librarians. It will also take safe, well-maintained facilities and skilled principals who create the kind of school environments that make teachers want to stay.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114397/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Addonizio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A presidential candidate wants to use federal funds to boost teacher pay. Is the proposal justified or is it just pandering to teacher unions to get votes? An education scholar provides perspective.Michael Addonizio, Professor of educational leadership and policy studies, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1128942019-03-26T14:04:46Z2019-03-26T14:04:46ZEducation in Nigeria is in a mess from top to bottom. Five things can fix it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264646/original/file-20190319-60956-zetlly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nigeria’s education system is based on the (1)-6-3-3-4 formula: one year pre-primary education, six years primary, three years junior secondary, three years senior secondary, and a minimum of four years tertiary education. </p>
<p>The model had been used successfully in China, Germany and Ghana before Nigeria adopted it in 1989.</p>
<p>But it’s never been fully implemented in Nigeria. Although successive governments have theoretically upheld its objectives, none has successfully implemented the policy. </p>
<p>Nigeria’s educational system is in assorted crises of infrastructural decay, neglect, waste of resources and sordid conditions of service. The country has over 10 million <a href="https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/education">out-of-school children</a>. That’s the highest in the world. Another 27 million children in school are <a href="http://www.thecable.ng/goodbye-to-buhari-illusion">performing very poorly</a>. Millions of Nigerians are half-educated, and over 60 million – or 30% – are <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/more-news/250397-60-million-nigerians-are-illiterates-minister.html">illiterate</a>.</p>
<p>On top of this, many eligible young Nigerians can’t gain admission into public universities. At the same time prohibitive tuition fees, among other factors, are a barrier to the country’s private universities. </p>
<p>As the Buhari-Osinbajo government starts its second term it should focus on key areas that will dig Nigeria’s education system out of the deep hole it’s in. I have identified five priorities it should attend to first.</p>
<h2>Appointment</h2>
<p>The new government should appoint an expert Minister of Education, not a political party lackey. In the past, Nigeria’s educational system has fared better under expert education ministers who earned their stripes through the system.</p>
<p>Take Professor Jubril Aminu, who served in the portfolio from 1985 to 1990. The 6-3-3-4 system was inaugurated during his tenure. Aminu also introduced “<a href="https://www.ajouronline.com/index.php/AJHSS/article/view/2881">nomadic education</a>” in 1989 for nomadic Fulani and other migrant ethnic groups. </p>
<p>Aminu was followed by Professor Babs Fafunwa (1990 to 1992). He overhauled the national education policy. He also provided room for education in mother tongue, a universal practice which most African countries have not fully implemented. UNESCO recommends education in mother tongue because of its immense <a href="https://learningportal.iiep.unesco.org/en/issue-briefs/improve-learning/curriculum-and-materials/language-of-instruction">advantages</a>.</p>
<p>Lastly, under Professor Sam Egwu (2008 to 2010), a controversial agreement was signed between the government and the union <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/wp-content/files/2013/10/FGN.ASUU-INITIALED-AGREEMENT-JAN.-2009.pdf">representing the country’s academic staff</a>. The agreement – signed in 2009 after drawn-out negotiations – stipulated conditions of service and remuneration for lecturers, the autonomy of universities and how the government should fund tertiary education. </p>
<p>But successive governments have violated the terms of the pact, claiming that they didn’t have the money to meet some of its terms. Officials claimed that sections of the pact were difficult, and in some cases impossible, to implement. However, the union rejects these claims and has accused the government of using delay tactics and questionable criticisms to frustrate the deal.</p>
<h2>Funding</h2>
<p>Funding is the biggest problem confronting Nigeria’s education system. The percentage of the budget allocated to education annually is abysmally low. In 2018, only <a href="https://punchng.com/2018-budget-and-the-paltry-allocation-for-education/">7.04%</a> was allocated to education. This is far below UNESCO’s recommended <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/251927-fact-check-unesco-ever-recommend-26-per-cent-budgetary-allocation-education.html">15%-26%</a>.</p>
<p>Nigeria’s experience with the commercialisation and neglect of government secondary and primary school levels has led to poorer education outcomes. Nor is privatisation the answer: it’s only likely to widen the gap between the rich and the poor. It will deny many children affordable quality education, increase the rate of illiteracy and reduce academic performance at the tertiary level. </p>
<p>If the government continues to privatise government-owned universities, as is already the case with the proliferation of private universities with high fees, tertiary education will become the exclusive preserve of the rich upper class. This, in a country where more than 90% of the population is currently living in <a href="http://www.thecable.ng/goodbye-to-bujari-illusion">abject poverty</a>. </p>
<p>The government should also cut wasteful expenditure. For example, I would argue that the “school children feeding programme” is a massive drain on resources.</p>
<p>Government <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/fg-spends-n49bn-on-school-feeding-programme-2/">reported</a> earlier this year that it allocated 220 billion naira for the programme and of that, about 50 billion naira was wasted. This money could have be spent on more pressing problems such as building more classrooms and equipping them, supplying teaching and learning materials and improving staff welfare and remuneration. </p>
<h2>Money for research</h2>
<p>Research suffers in three ways in Nigeria. First, researchers work without sponsorship, particularly in the core sciences. The Tertiary Education Trust Fund is virtually the only source of money. The Trust funds and sponsors research projects, gives grants for research and sponsors lecturers for academic conferences, among other things. But its resources are limited and its operations are slow, highly selective and sometimes politicised.</p>
<p>Secondly, study findings are often abandoned on library shelves because the government isn’t committed to research-oriented development. Researchers don’t have the means to promote their work and research findings. </p>
<p>Third, research output is mediocre and repetitive because there are no effective measures in place to track research output nationwide. </p>
<h2>Stop incessant strikes</h2>
<p>In 1978, the Academic Staff Union of Universities was <a href="https://www.thecable.ng/asuu-strike-beginning-greater-suffering">established</a> to represent academic staff in Nigeria’s universities. <a href="http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=370195&rel_no=1">Since then</a>, there have been strikes almost every year, disrupting the academic calendar.</p>
<p>To stop these annual disruptions, the government must increase budgetary allocations to the sector and honour agreements that have been signed with the unions. </p>
<p>The only way that strikes will be stopped is if the welfare of all staff, from teachers to lecturers, is prioritised. </p>
<h2>In conclusion</h2>
<p>If these priorities are successfully implemented, Nigeria’s education system would be well on its way to realising government’s commitment to its own policies and the United Nations’ <a href="https://undocs.org/A/RES/70/1">Sustainable Development Goals</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Omowumi Olabode Steven Ekundayo is affiliated with with the Liberation Party and works with the party as an administrative consultant. </span></em></p>Nigeria has the world’s highest number of out-of-school children and over 60 million of its citizens are illiterate. Here’s what the country can do to improve its education sector.Omowumi Olabode Steven Ekundayo, University of BeninLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1127352019-03-04T11:39:50Z2019-03-04T11:39:50ZTeacher unions say they’re fighting for students and schools – what they really want is more members<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261755/original/file-20190302-110115-xda7d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teachers, students and supporters rally in front of City Hall in Oakland, Calif., in February. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Oakland-Teachers-Strike/99b9ba96c9fc4ec9bfd16e13c8bc4beb/6/0">Jeff Chiu/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When schoolteachers in Los Angeles went on a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/us/la-teacher-strike-deal.html">weeklong strike</a> in January, the head of the local teachers union described it as a “<a href="https://edsource.org/2019/teachers-mobilize-in-los-angeles-but-pathway-to-find-way-out-of-strike-is-murky/607146">battle for the soul of public education</a>.” When Denver public school teachers went on a three-day strike in February, they did it in the name of “<a href="https://denverteachers.org/denver-educators-strike-for-their-students-tomorrow/">schools Denver students deserve</a>.”</p>
<p>When teachers began their strike in Oakland on Feb. 26, the local teachers union repeated this message, voicing that they were “<a href="https://oaklandea.org/updates/we-are-fighting-for-the-schools-oakland-students-deserve/">fighting for the schools Oakland students’ deserve</a>” and in a struggle for the “<a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/this-is-why-oakland-teachers-are-on-strike.html">soul of public education</a>.” The Oakland teachers’ strike <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/striking-oakland-teachers-reach-deal-end-walkout-includes-11-percent-n978476">ended on March 1</a>.</p>
<p>It’s true, many of the demands the unions are making will likely benefit students. But beneath the rallying cries, unions in the public sector are facing a new reality that suggests they are actually fighting for something else.</p>
<p>Ever since the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/us/teacher-unions-fallout-supreme-court-janus.html">Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME</a> in 2018 that workers are free to choose whether to join a union, we’d argue that the teacher strikes have been as much a fight for the soul of the union as they are for the soul of public education. What the teachers’ unions really want and need is membership. As one political science professor told The New York Times: “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/us/teacher-unions-fallout-supreme-court-janus.html">Members and money are power in politics</a>.”</p>
<p>The deals that teachers’ unions negotiate with school districts matter more than ever for maintaining their membership and political power in the post-Janus world. As education policy scholars who have studied <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JAZULk0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">teachers’ unions</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NDkwqOQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">teacher collective bargaining</a> for over a decade, we have read thousands of agreements like the ones just negotiated in Los Angeles, Denver and Oakland. </p>
<h2>Negotiating for numbers</h2>
<p>The agreements that unions are securing establish teacher salaries, restrictions on the length of the workday, performance evaluation procedures and other important working conditions. But they also set staffing levels for teachers, librarians and counselors. In short, if unions can win at the bargaining table they can increase staffing. And if they can increase staffing, they can increase membership and ensure their future. </p>
<p>Consider the deal that the teachers’ union secured in Los Angeles. Along with a 6 percent salary increase – basically the school district’s offer long before the final contract was signed – the deal includes numerous staffing guarantees that equate to more membership for the Los Angeles teachers’ union: 300 nurses, 82 librarians, 77 counselors. The contract reduces class size by four students in grades 4 through 12 over the duration of the contract, requiring the school district to add new teachers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Striking Los Angeles Unified District teachers are joined by parents and students in front of Evelyn Thurman Gratts Elementary School in Los Angeles in January.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Los-Angeles-Teachers-Strike/0184d7cb63254905a8a32ac0094aa005/36/0">Richard Vogel</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Oakland teachers’ union used a similar playbook. The union secured an <a href="https://oaklandea.org/updates/oea-reaches-tentative-agreement-with-ousd/">11 percent raise</a> over the next four years and a modest reduction in class size by the 2021-22 school year. Additionally, the new contract lowers the counselor-to-student ratio, establishes new caseload limits for school psychologists and speech and language pathologists, and increases staffing levels at schools with 50 or more students who are new to the country – all provisions that will require the district to add more educators. Finally, the union secured a five-month pause on school closures and consolidations, which will maintain current teaching and support staff positions at those schools.</p>
<h2>Strategy for charter schools</h2>
<p>Not only are teachers’ union fighting for increased staffing levels, but they are also using contract negotiations to limit the transfer of teachers to non-union schools that pose a threat to their membership levels. Both teachers’ unions took a hard stance on charter schools in their negotiations. In Los Angeles, the teachers’ union <a href="https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/UTLA-talks-Charter-School-LAUSD-Strike-approaching-503401771.html">called for</a> an eight- to 10-month moratorium on new charter schools, something the Los Angeles Unified School District board cannot provide. However, the Los Angeles Unified School District <a href="https://www.utla.net/news/school-board-approves-moratorium-charters">agreed to endorse</a> such a moratorium and lobby California’s governor to that end.</p>
<p>The Oakland teachers’ union secured a nearly identical commitment from the school district to also lobby the state legislature for the same moratorium. </p>
<p>Even while they attempt to limit charter school growth, the unions are also seeking to <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/12/14/the-teachers-unions-have-a-charter-school.html">organize charter school teachers</a>. Of the 277 charter schools in Los Angeles, 65 of them – or 23 percent – are organized by the Los Angeles teachers’ union. In addition, the new LA contract provides union leaders the opportunity to pick a “coordinator” to work with staff at charter schools that share a campus with a traditional public school. This is essentially a foot in the door to draw membership from the charter sector. In Oakland, only two of the 44 charters – or 5 percent – are unionized and are represented by the parent organization of the Oakland teachers union, the California Teachers Association.</p>
<p>All in all, our rough calculations suggest that the <a href="https://achieve.lausd.net/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=4&ModuleInstanceID=45663&ViewID=6446EE88-D30C-497E-9316-3F8874B3E108&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=73638&PageID=1">staffing provisions</a> in the new Los Angeles contract could add over 1,500 members to the the Los Angeles teachers’ union’s membership. This equates to about a 5 percent increase in the union’s ranks of over <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/01/13/684645947/los-angeles-teachers-are-moving-forward-with-a-strike">30,000 educators</a>. The Oakland teachers’ union could get a similar boost.</p>
<p>In a post-Janus world, unions are showcasing the viability of the picket line as a way to win contracts that bolster membership. Not only that, because only union members can vote to authorize a strike, union leadership can leverage strike votes to petition – or pressure – non-union members to join the movement. The Los Angeles union reports <a href="https://www.utla.net/sites/default/files/UTLA_PUB_Sept18-low-rez.pdf">adding over 1,000 members</a> during their strike vote. The Denver union reports <a href="https://www.cpr.org/news/story/the-strength-behind-the-denver-teacher-strike-is-the-unions-swelling-membership">adding 250</a> of its 3,800 members during its authorization vote. </p>
<p>So why are teachers’ unions striking with increased frequency? Teachers’ unions are striking to fight for benefits their students need. But also – and perhaps more so – they are striking for membership they need to stay viable after Janus. Unions are fighting for their survival.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112735/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Teachers’ unions often claim they are striking for better schools on behalf of students. A closer look at recent strikes suggests they are fighting for something else: membership.Bradley D. Marianno, Assistant Professor of Educational Policy & Leadership, University of Nevada, Las VegasKatharine O. Strunk, Professor of Education Policy and Economics, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1114902019-02-21T13:41:18Z2019-02-21T13:41:18ZWhat’s behind the teacher strikes: Unions focus on social justice, not just salaries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260082/original/file-20190221-148513-1hkf0yu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Striking teachers are increasingly casting their struggle as being part of a broader struggle for social justice.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Oakland-Teachers-Strike/de2ede2732fb4a89860cf7a138c2fec3/43/0">David Zalubowski/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the past few years I’ve been studying teacher unions and teachers strikes throughout the Americas. My research has taken me from the Mexican state of Oaxaca – where <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/world/americas/29mexico.html">teacher protests in 2006</a> led to both <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/06/mexico-teachers-union-cnte-snte-oaxaca-nieto-zapatistas-strike/">violent repression</a> and a <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/manuel-garza-zepeda/popular-movement-of-oaxaca-ten-years-later">broad-based social movement</a> for direct democracy – to the streets of São Paulo, Brazil, to coal-mining towns in West Virginia.</p>
<p>I’ve learned that certain conditions prompt teacher unions to adopt new forms of activism and take up broader issues of social justice that go beyond how much teachers are paid.</p>
<p>Now is such a time in the United States. </p>
<h2>Factors driving the strikes</h2>
<p>The teacher strike that began Feb. 21 in Oakland, California, is just the latest example in a wave of teacher strikes that have swept the country over the past year.</p>
<p>In my view as a researcher who deals with <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=list_works&gmla=AJsN-F7kI--BtwRyFXzgHZAWXqIhkAiLEWabUoHfBuAQfS2oiGtdTz1KLKb8hn47N7CQGnT3G6arl6r0p2QzGdk_vL9a5VIhIg&user=UIbU8eEAAAAJ">issues of education and labor</a>, the current teacher strike wave in the United States is the result of three factors.</p>
<p>First is the acceleration of market-based education reforms, including the expansion of charter schools. </p>
<p>Second is networks of teacher activists organizing and transforming their unions to focus on broader social issues. </p>
<p>Third is the framing of teacher union action as part of the struggle for racial justice.</p>
<p>These factors have led teacher unions to <a href="http://www.reclaimourschools.org/">form alliances with community organizations</a>, <a href="https://www.schoolslastudentsdeserve.com/">enlist students</a> and <a href="https://www.utla.net/parents-community">parents</a> to join the activism, and <a href="http://time.com/5499164/la-teacher-strike-charter-schools/">speak out against</a> efforts to expand charter schools and privatization.</p>
<h2>Inspired by Occupy</h2>
<p>Let’s look at how these three factors played out in Oakland, starting several years ago.</p>
<p>As I learned through interviews, teacher activists in Oakland drew inspiration from the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/what-is-occupy-wall-street-the-history-of-leaderless-movements/2011/10/10/gIQAwkFjaL_story.html?utm_term=.4d0c5bf6322c">Occupy movement</a> in 2011. They helped occupy a local elementary school to <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2012/07/03/oakland-school-sit-in-raided-after-nearly-three-weeks/">protest its closing</a>, and eventually created a union caucus called Classroom Struggle with a couple dozen teachers to promote more social justice issues. Then, last spring, <a href="https://classroomstruggle.org/oea-elections/candidates/">these teacher activists</a> created a slate, in alliance with African-American teacher and organizer <a href="https://oaklandea.org/board/keith-brown/">Keith Brown</a>, and won the leadership of the Oakland Education Association. Since taking office on July 1, 2018, this new union leadership – inspired by the successful strikes in West Virgina, Arizona and Los Angeles – have been preparing for a strike.</p>
<p>The conditions that led to the Oakland strike are similar to those that led to strikes in other cities earlier this year, such as Los Angeles.</p>
<p>For instance, public education in Oakland has been <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-schools-face-harsh-cuts-as-another-budget-12346142.php">defunded</a> and the city, much like Los Angeles, is experiencing <a href="https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/report-the-cost-of-charter-schools-for-public-school-districts/">charter school expansion</a> that teachers say is taking money away from public schools. One recent report found that charter schools take <a href="https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/report-the-cost-of-charter-schools-for-public-school-districts/">US$57.3 million</a> a year from public schools in Oakland.</p>
<p>Teacher union actions in Oakland also mirror tactics and strategies that unions have used in other cities. For instance, Oakland teacher union leaders have enlisted the help of <a href="https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Oakland-Unified-School-District-Officials-Advise-Educators-to-Not-Participate-in-Sickout-502299022.html">student</a> and <a href="https://californiaeducator.org/redforedoakland/">community groups</a> and focused on <a href="http://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-teachers-announce-strike-over-pay-class-sizes-1">racial justice</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Teacher unions are enlisting students to help support their strikes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Denver-Teachers-Strike/d56fe2de08e64993935a25d325c0b05f/1/0">David Zalubowski/AP</a></span>
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<p>All these actions have transformed the Oakland Education Association – and many other teachers’ unions across the country – into leaders of a social movement that has the potential of redefining public education, the labor movement and American politics. </p>
<p>Much of the media attention on teacher strikes has focused on the economic reasons for the strikes, such as <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/08/22/teachers-are-winning-public-support-for-pay.html">low teacher salaries</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/us/west-virginia-teachers-strike.html">rising health care costs</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/03/us/oklahoma-teachers-textbooks-trnd/index.html">aging textbooks</a>. But there are important historical factors at play.</p>
<p>Historically, teachers’ unions have not led social, racial and economic justice movements. But there are some exceptions. Those exceptions include <a href="http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-01560-8.html">teacher unionists’ critique of authoritarianism</a> in Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s; teachers’ participation in the movement for a return to democracy in Brazil in the late 1970s; and, in the United States, the participation of many <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/reds-at-the-blackboard/9780231152693">teacher union leaders in the civil rights activism</a> of the 1950s and 1960s.</p>
<p>However, it is also important to note that during the 1960s, many teachers in the United States also found themselves at odds with communities of color. Perhaps this is best exemplified by the <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300109405/strike-changed-new-york">1968 Ocean Hill-Brownsville Strike</a>, when the United Federation of Teachers rallied against black community control of schools.</p>
<h2>New alliances</h2>
<p>Today’s teacher activists have bridged the divide between teacher unions and communities of color. For instance, between 2010 and 2012, teacher activists from Chicago’s Caucus of Rank and File Educators, or CORE, aligned with other community groups to organize against school closings in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. CORE also supported parents and students <a href="https://www.labornotes.org/2012/02/chicago-occupation-challenges-corporate-school-agenda">occupying an elementary school</a> to prevent its closure. Their rallying call – “<a href="https://news.wttw.com/sites/default/files/Chicago%20Teachers%20Union%20report_0.pdf">Schools that Chicago Students Deserve</a>” – included demands for reduced class size and other things related to classroom conditions.</p>
<p>In Los Angeles, activists embraced this social movement approach to union activism, fighting for the “<a href="https://www.utla.net/sites/default/files/UTLA_SLASDFINAL.pdf">Schools that LA Students Deserve</a>.” In 2014, the Los Angeles activists created a new caucus, <a href="https://www.labornotes.org/2014/01/la-teachers-run-bigger-vision">Union Power</a>, winning the elections and immediately hiring dozens of new organizers to help build towards a strike. They worked in alliance with <a href="http://reclaimourschoolsla.org/">dozens of community organizations</a>. </p>
<p>The Black Lives Matter movement fueled energy into a new student movement, called <a href="https://www.schoolslastudentsdeserve.com/">Students Deserve</a>, directly supported by the union leadership. The six-day LA strike in early 2019 represented, more than anything else, an explicit <a href="https://www.utla.net/campaigns-issues/issues/racial-justice">racial justice struggle</a>. The LA strike also called into question <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/los-angeles-teachers-strike-antiracism-unions">claims</a> by the charter and <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Market-Movements-African-American-Involvement-in-School-Voucher-Reform/Pedroni/p/book/9780203941355">voucher</a> movements that school choice policies represent the best path to social mobility for children from poor communities of color.</p>
<p>Teacher unions are not always – and not often – the leaders of broader social justice movements. Now that’s changing due to a new generation of union activists who see their struggle as part of the fight for equitable resources for the communities in which they teach.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Tarlau receives funding from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship program.</span></em></p>The teacher strikes that have swept the US represent a new shift in teacher activism that has led teacher unions to align with broader social and racial justice movements, an education scholar says.Rebecca Tarlau, Assistant Professor of Education and of Labor and Employment Relations, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1118182019-02-15T11:50:33Z2019-02-15T11:50:33ZStriking teachers in Denver shut down performance bonuses – here’s how that will impact education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259137/original/file-20190214-1742-1ryp167.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Denver public school teachers went on strike on Feb. 11 and successfully eliminated a controversial bonus-based pay system.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Denver-Teachers-Strike/048c0a30236543789325880e59e73e20/11/0">David Zalubowski/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: Denver teachers reached a tentative deal on Feb. 14 that ended a three-day strike.</em> </p>
<p><em>Besides raises of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/14/us/denver-teachers-end-strike/index.html">7 to 11 percent</a>, one of the concessions they won was the end of performance-based pay, which they <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/02/09/denver-teachers-dps-discord-procomp-bonus-system/">said was unreliable</a> and led to unacceptably low base pay.</em></p>
<p><em>Nathan Favero, an education policy expert at American University, answers three questions about the effectiveness of performance-based pay and how its elimination will impact education in Denver.</em></p>
<p><strong>How did performance affect teachers’ pay?</strong></p>
<p>While teachers’ base salaries were mostly determined by their education levels and teaching experience, in Denver public schools, teachers also got substantial bonuses based on a number of other factors, including performance.</p>
<p>The main performance-based bonus went to teachers in schools where students performed particularly well on standardized tests. If a school was designated as high-achieving, then all teachers in that school received the bonus that year. The size of bonuses for teachers working in recognized schools varied from year to year, but amounts have been as large as <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161215134138/http://hr.dpsk12.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2015-12-16-Joint-Letter-ProComp-Agreement.pdf">US$5,100 per teacher</a>.</p>
<p>Under early versions of the district’s bonus pay system, teachers were also recognized individually for good performance. However, these individual performance bonuses were largely <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161215134138/http://hr.dpsk12.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2015-12-16-Joint-Letter-ProComp-Agreement.pdf">done away with in 2015</a>. Teachers still received individual performance evaluations every year, but in most schools, these evaluations did not affect teacher pay, except when a teacher was found to be severely deficient. </p>
<p>Even after 2015, individual performance pay was still used in one set of schools. Every year, the district identified 30 “highest priority” schools. Teachers in these schools could receive <a href="http://thecommons.dpsk12.org/Page/1562">bonuses based on individual performance evaluations</a>. These evaluations rated teachers based on <a href="http://thecommons.dpsk12.org/Page/394">several data sources</a>, including students’ standardized test scores, surveys filled out by students, achievement of student learning goals set by the teacher and classroom observations conducted by school leaders or peers.</p>
<p><strong>How effective is pay-for-performance?</strong></p>
<p>Research teams based at the University of Colorado at Denver and the University of Colorado at Boulder have concluded that the pay-for-performance system had few effects on students. </p>
<p>One analysis found that performance incentives <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/cadre/2017/08/25/denver-procomp-evaluation-report-2010-2012">caused a tiny increase in math scores</a>, but even these small gains were offset by slight drops in reading and writing scores. Other analyses found <a href="http://www.the-evaluation-center.org/projects/prek-12/procomp">no evidence of any effect</a> on standardized test scores.</p>
<p>Despite lackluster results on standardized tests, Denver’s pay-for-performance system may have helped a bit when it comes to retaining teachers. One analysis estimates that the city <a href="http://www.the-evaluation-center.org/projects/prek-12/procomp">retained up to 160 teachers</a> per year who otherwise would have quit if it wasn’t for the performance pay system. Given the fact that the district had 3,700 teachers at the time of the study, this means about 4.3 percent of Denver’s teacher workforce was potentially retained because of the pay system. Another analysis indicates that the retained teachers were <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/cadre/2017/08/25/procomp-evaluation-report-teacher-retention-and-variability-bonus-pay-2001-02-through">better-than-average teachers</a>, which makes them particularly important to the district.</p>
<p>Across the nation, other school districts have had similar experiences with pay-for-performance. On average, teacher pay-for-performance systems seem to <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w20983">produce a small improvement</a> <a href="http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2018/08/01/jhr.55.2.0216.7719R3.abstract">for students</a>, though <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9596/index1.html">not always</a>.</p>
<p>The limited success of Denver’s performance pay system may be due in part to its complexity. Researchers found through surveys and interviews of teachers that many of them did not know exactly how bonuses could be earned or even had <a href="http://www.the-evaluation-center.org/projects/prek-12/procomp">wrong information</a>. Many teachers also felt that the <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/cadre/2017/08/25/denver-procomp-evaluation-report-2010-2012">bonus system was unfair</a> and that the individual performance evaluation could sometimes be manipulated by, for example, setting easily achievable goals to be assessed with an administrator at the end of the year.</p>
<p><strong>So what changes under the new contract?</strong></p>
<p>Under the <a href="https://denverteachers.org/wp-content/uploads/DPS-DCTA-Agreement.pdf">new labor deal</a>, almost all pay-for-performance is eliminated. Instead of paying bonuses to teachers in schools with impressive standardized test scores, $750 bonuses will be paid to teachers in up to 10 schools selected by a committee for excellence in areas such as health education, counseling services and community engagement. The agreement specifically states that these awards cannot be based on teacher performance evaluation data or school report cards that contain standardized test scores.</p>
<p>The deal also eliminates bonuses tied to individual performance evaluations for teachers in high-priority schools. Extra pay for teachers in hard-to-staff schools will continue. However, all teachers working in these schools will receive the same bonus, regardless of their performance evaluation.</p>
<p>Teachers have asked for a pay system that is more predictable. The revised pay system should give them more certainty at the beginning of the year about how much they can expect to make. Students and administrators will have to hope that the district can continue to retain high-quality teachers despite the elimination of performance bonuses that may have helped persuade some of these teachers to stay in the district in the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111818/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathan Favero does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Through a three-day strike, Denver teachers got rid of a bonus-based pay system that they say was unfair. An education policy expert explains what the end of bonus-based pay means for Denver schools.Nathan Favero, Assistant Professor of Public Administration & Policy, American University School of Public AffairsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1100952019-01-27T18:55:40Z2019-01-27T18:55:40ZLift teacher status to improve student performance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255538/original/file-20190125-108348-iksykx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There need to be deeper reforms to teaching, such as higher pay at the top end, better opportunities for career advancement, and improvements to the professional working environment.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia needs to lift the status of teachers to attract the best and brightest to teaching. The world’s top-performing school systems make it a national priority to attract the strongest candidates. Improving teacher selection improves student results.</p>
<p>Australia’s brightest students are increasingly rejecting teaching. The greatest <a href="http://andrewleigh.org/pdf/TrendsTeacherQuality%20(old).pdf">falls</a> were in the 1980s. But entry standards have slipped further over the past decade. </p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>In 2018, only <a href="https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/undergraduate_applications_offers_and_acceptances_2018.pdf">one in four</a> students offered a place in undergraduate teaching based on their <a href="http://www.vtac.edu.au/results-offers/atar-explained.html">Australian Tertiary Admission Rank</a> (ATAR) had an ATAR of 80 or more, compared to one in two across all courses. </p>
<p>To stop the decline, <a href="https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/teacher-accreditation/how-accreditation-works/your-accreditation/future-teachers/increased-academic-standards">New South Wales</a> and <a href="https://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/educationstate/Pages/intteached.aspx#link51">Victoria</a> have tightened entry standards. Victoria will increase minimum ATAR requirements from 65 to 70 this year.</p>
<p>Federal Labor’s shadow education minister Tanya Plibersek <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-06/low-scoring-atar-students-to-be-barred-from-becoming-teachers/10687746">wants</a> to make entry to teaching far more competitive by significantly increasing ATAR requirements towards an ATAR of about 80. She has threatened to cap teaching places if universities don’t lift entry standards themselves. She says too many high-achieving school students get told not to “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/they-should-try-me-universities-reject-labor-call-on-raising-atar-20190106-p50pvk.html">waste their ATAR</a>” by going into teaching. </p>
<p>The federal minister, Dan Tehan, says better <a href="https://au.educationhq.com/news/56273/tehan-staggered-by-how-educators-are-treated-in-australian-schools/">career paths</a> and pay reforms are key to making teaching a more attractive profession. His <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Employment_Education_and_Training/TeachingProfession">Parliamentary Inquiry</a> into teaching status will report back soon.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/viewpoints-should-teaching-students-who-fail-a-literacy-and-numeracy-test-be-barred-from-teaching-109882">Viewpoints: should teaching students who fail a literacy and numeracy test be barred from teaching?</a>
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<p>Both arguments have merit. Making entry more selective will help lift status, but the low status of teaching is more than an image problem. There also needs to be deeper reforms to the job itself, such as higher pay at the top end, better opportunities for career advancement, and improvements to the professional working environment.</p>
<p>These reforms would have dual benefits: they would help attract talented people to teaching, and empower existing teachers to be more effective. </p>
<h2>Entry to teaching should be more selective</h2>
<p>Tightening teacher selection can deliver big improvements in student results. Yet universities tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to proposals to raise ATAR entry standards. For example, earlier this month the President of the Australian Council of Deans of Education, Tania Aspland, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/they-should-try-me-universities-reject-labor-call-on-raising-atar-20190106-p50pvk.html">claimed</a> “there is no evidence to show that those with higher ATARs become better teachers”.</p>
<p>But the world’s top-performing systems, such as Singapore, Korea and Finland, invest heavily in screening candidates on admission to teaching. Prospective teachers are assessed on their prior academic ability, as well as traits such as dedication to teaching. </p>
<p>Singapore even assesses student teacher performance in a real-world classroom trial. Only one in ten students who apply to be teachers in Singapore are <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/130_report_learning_from_the_best_detail.pdf">accepted</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255510/original/file-20190125-108367-sb2khk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255510/original/file-20190125-108367-sb2khk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255510/original/file-20190125-108367-sb2khk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255510/original/file-20190125-108367-sb2khk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255510/original/file-20190125-108367-sb2khk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255510/original/file-20190125-108367-sb2khk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255510/original/file-20190125-108367-sb2khk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Making entry to teaching more selective will need careful management.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p><a href="https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/wdobbie/files/dobbie_tfa_2011.pdf">Several</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.3386/w14485">rigorous</a> <a href="http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2018/07/03/jhr.55.1.0317.8619R1.abstract">studies</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.3386/w14021">find</a> prior academic performance is a good indicator of who will go on to become a great teacher, not just on standardised tests but <a href="https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jrockoff/papers/Manuscript,%20Teacher%20Hiring%20082118.pdf">also</a> according to on-the-job performance reviews. One 2018 multi-country study found countries with teachers who have high academic aptitude <a href="http://hanushek.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Hanushek%2BPiopiunik%2BWiederhold_JHR.pdf">get better</a> student maths and literacy results.</p>
<p>Yes, <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w12155">some</a> <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED509656.pdf">studies</a> find no link between markers of cognitive ability (such as the SAT scores of US teachers) and student results. But on balance, the evidence suggests requiring prospective teachers to have a higher ATAR – along with other predictive factors such as leadership capabilities and dedication to teaching - will increase the likelihood of recruiting more effective teachers. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-atar-battle-one-thing-is-clear-teaching-needs-to-attract-better-recruits-55700">In the ATAR battle, one thing is clear: teaching needs to attract better recruits</a>
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<p>Making entry to teaching more competitive will need to be carefully managed. To ensure diversity in the future workforce, there will need to be adequate alternative pathways for students from a variety of backgrounds or specialist skills. But alternative pathways should not be used as a smokescreen for lowering overall entry standards.</p>
<h2>Deeper reforms are needed to help raise teacher status</h2>
<p>Tightening selection into teaching will help make it more prestigious, but lifting the profession’s low status requires at least three other reforms. </p>
<p>First, lift teacher pay at the top end. Teachers in Australia start on a good salary compared to other graduates, but the pay is too low at the top end. Australia’s top teacher salary is 40% higher than the starting salary, well below the <a href="https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=EAG_TS_ACT">OECD</a> average of 80%. To attract high-achievers, the top-end salary needs to be competitive with their options elsewhere. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255509/original/file-20190125-108361-14n0o5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255509/original/file-20190125-108361-14n0o5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255509/original/file-20190125-108361-14n0o5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255509/original/file-20190125-108361-14n0o5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255509/original/file-20190125-108361-14n0o5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255509/original/file-20190125-108361-14n0o5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255509/original/file-20190125-108361-14n0o5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">There are no easy fixes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>Second, offer better career pathways. The best teachers should have fast-track opportunities that give them responsibility for developing other teachers and driving improvement in their school and beyond. Job descriptions such as this exist on paper, but they don’t necessarily happen in practice. </p>
<p>Better career options for those passionate about mastering teaching should sit <a href="https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/662684_tgta_accessible_final_0.pdf">alongside</a> school leadership pathways, so teachers don’t have to switch into school management to gain promotion and a pay rise. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-raise-status-of-teaching-australia-needs-to-lift-pay-and-cut-teacher-numbers-63518">To raise status of teaching, Australia needs to lift pay and cut teacher numbers</a>
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<p>Third, improve the professional work environment for teachers. Teachers need more opportunities to develop on the job, with meaningful feedback on how to improve their classroom practice. They need more high-quality, tried-and-tested materials – and fewer time-consuming administrative tasks.</p>
<p>There are no easy fixes to the entrenched problem of low teacher status in Australia. Making entry to teaching more selective would be a good first step, but deeper reforms to pay, career and the work environment are also necessary.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110095/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Evidence shows improving teacher selection will improve student results.Julie Sonnemann, Fellow, Grattan InstituteJonathan Nolan, Associate, Grattan InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.