New data shows that Sioux Falls teachers earn $5000 more than the average South Dakota teacher [Terry Woster, "Teacher Pay Up in City -- Still Lags U.S.," that Sioux Falls paper that advertises smut without a blush, 2007.07.31]. Expect an ever-increasing brain drain from the small towns to the big city...
...but expect a fair portion of that brain drain to keep passing right through Sioux Falls to Minnesota, Iowa, and other greener pastures. Woster notes that Sioux Falls (even with 12 administrators making six figures) still lags behind the national average teacher pay by $10,000.
The usual objections arise: some South Dakotans (and commenters on the article forum) note that Sioux Falls' $41,454.95 is pretty good pay for nine months of work, and that that money stretches oh so much farther thanks to South Dakota's gloriously low cost of living.
Both arguments ignore reality. First, trying to calculate exactly how much time teachers spend on the job compared to other professions is amusing but irrelevant. Let's compare apples to apples: teachers work similar hours and months across the country. Almost every state has an average school year within 5 days of 180 (sorry -- these 2002 figures are the best I can find this morning -- as always, I welcome updates!). Our school year is not 30% shorter than the national average; our teachers certainly aren't doing 30% less work than teachers in other states; so why do we pay them 30% less than the national average? Even English teachers can do that math (tee hee!). Our low teacher pay puts us at a competitive disadvantage with neighboring states who will pay more for the same amount of work.
Our lower cost of living doesn't make up the difference, either. South Dakota's Cost of Living Index for the first quarter of 2007 is 90.1% of the national average. Iowa's is 93.3%. Minnesota's is 99.1%. Thus, the cost of living is 3.3% higher in Iowa than in South Dakota; its average teacher pay is 13% higher (and that's before Iowa's move this year to boost teacher pay to be 25th in the nation). Minnesota's cost of living is 10% higher than SD's; its teacher pay is 27% higher. I've argued numbers like these before; even after factoring in cost of living, teachers still come out ahead in our neighboring states.
Even when we factor in all the traditional excuses for South Dakota's low teacher pay, the ugly fact behind all these numbers is that South Dakotans just don't value teachers as much as citizens of other states do. That's not exactly the sort of morale-building piety we hear at the New Teacher Academies and educator receptions, but it's an economic and cultural reality that young teachers must face as they consider whether they want to dedicate their lives to education in South Dakota.
Cory
ReplyDeleteInteresting argument - throwing out the $ per hour worked comparisons as irrelevant. I'm not so sure that is as easily accepted you might think. One argument I always hear against raising teacher pay (or more precisely, why having low teacher pay is ok) is that all SD salaries and wages are below the national average. How do you respond to that?
Another comparison you should look at, if you haven't already, is between SD and WY. The RC Journal ran an article about it in March -- Area schools fight to compete with Wyoming teacher salaries
I'm not sure where you are pulling your numbers, but I have done some extensive research into this particular subject. I would say the way you are intrepreting your data is a little bit interesting, but here is what I have interpreted from this issue. First and foremost, South Dakota has one of the lowest costs of living in the country, somewhere between 45-48th of 50 states. Second, the average teacher in this state makes around 34000/yr (Sioux Falls is about 39000/yr). Thirdly, I have a friend who just got his first job out of college teaching in a small town at 32000/yr, but understand that supply/demand comes into play here, as he found a job where demand for his area of expertise as well as his coaching contributed to the job. It's funny how economics seems to leave the playing for some people, but it is very important.
ReplyDeleteNow for comparison, lets look at our friendly state to the east, Minnesota. In minnesota the average teacher pay is a little higher, but my figues show that in comparison to the average wage in Minnesota, teachers make 2% less than the average wage. Now, in SD teachers make 20% more than the average wage in this state. This is where the cost of living argument comes in and the economic question of "who's better off?" The teachers in SD are better off on the whole. Granted, I've heard of teachers going to Luverne or other small towns along the SD/MN border and doing much better, but for reasons stated above. Don't forget that those teachers have to pay MN income tax as well, teachers here do not.
It's an arguement that could go on and on, but this is a small quick review of the data I have looked at. Don't forget we had a pay increase in this state as well this year, so teachers are that much better off now.
My disclaimers here is that my mom is a teacher and has been for 25 years, I come from the math and economic side of higher education, and I believe that we have a very good education system in this state and we have the scores to prove it.
Thanks for the link, Jack! I recall hearing about the amazing pay raises in Wyoming. Indeed, how do we compete with that?
ReplyDeleteOther wages for other professions low in South Dakota? Just as irrelevant as the hours-worked argument. South Dakota schools are competing with schools in other states for teachers: those are the wages we have to compare. We pay teachers less than Minnesota does, even within our cost-of-living-adjusted ability to pay any worker, because apparently, we don't value teachers as much as Minnesota does.
Now there certainly is competition among industries within South Dakota, and based on my job search around Madison this spring, teaching wages and hours do compare favorably with a lot of what's being offered. Lower wages across the board in South Dakota (and I'm operating without stats here -- commenters, feel free to supplement!) may make it easier for our schools to keep committed SD teachers from jumping ship to other industries. But then I'm an English teacher who doesn't like selling insurance.
Even so, I left my HS English/coaching job for a comparable wage (with a shorter commute) as a graduate assistant at DSU. Sure, our universities pay comparably less than universities nationwide, but they beat wages in K-12 ed, which is one more drain on the pool of good K-12 educators.
Other fields -- science, math, computer tech -- certainly offer better wages than teaching even in South Dakota. Even the best and brightest who want to stay in South Dakota can get better pay from our upper-end employers, leaving K-12 scrambling for talent. And it's not even just the elite high-tech or knowledge-based employers paying better wages and scooping up the talent: a 20-something friend we just had over for lunch yesterday said he makes more welding at Gehl than if he were teaching.
And beyond labor supply arguments, what about morality? Does it make moral sense to say, "Well, we can pay teachers less than what they're worth because we pay everyone less than what they're worth"? If someone screws you, you don't get much satisfaction (and the screwer doesn't get much absolution) from the knowledge that he screws everyone else, too.
What private employers pay is between them and their employees, the people they can convince to work for the wages they'll offer. But teachers are public employees. We citizens all thus have an obligation to discuss and decide what we think teachers are worth. We say nice things about teachers (well, most of us do), but our tax system and other policies make clear that we don't value them that much.
"I'm not so sure [the original argument] is as easily accepted [as] you might think." -- Oh, I'm under no illusions as to the difficulty of selling the argument to the general public. But I'll keep trying! Some people may never abandon their prejudices in favor of reality, but Jack, as long as you and I keep presenting the evidence, we can at least make it really hard for them to do so. :-)
Anonymous: My numbers come from the links given in the original post. Click and read. Meanwhile, you offer no clue as to where your numbers come from. Sources? Vague speculation?
ReplyDelete"In minnesota the average teacher pay is a little higher, but my figues show that in comparison to the average wage in Minnesota, teachers make 2% less than the average wage. Now, in SD teachers make 20% more than the average wage in this state. This is where the cost of living argument comes in and the economic question of "who's better off?" The teachers in SD are better off on the whole."
Here Anonymous does exactly what Jack suggested: tries to say SD wages overall are really low, so SD teachers are better off than MN teachers. Compare apples to apples, Anonymous. A teacher may compare teaching math and checking groceries in Madison and say, "Teaching pays better; I'll check groceries." But the real problem is teachers comparing teaching in South Dakota and teaching in Minnesota (or Iowa, or Wyoming, as Jack points out) and discovering that teaching in Minnesota will put more money in their pocket. I suppose you can take some comfort in being the richest guy in the ditch, but that won't convince people in the ditch to stay in the ditch or people outside the ditch to jump in with you.
And none of this argument calls into question the quality of education that our underappreciated teachers are able to deliver under bad circumstances. I agree wholeheartedly that we have a "very good education system in this state and we have the scores to prove it." (That system educated me, thank you, and I've taught in that system, you're welcome!) That high-quality performance makes our unwillingness to face economic realities and pay teachers what they worth all the more shameful.
SD wages are lower across the board, not just teachers. I had some statistics from the SD labor dept but don't have access to them right now that proved that.
ReplyDeleteOne of my kids is a vet in MN and can charge more there than he could in SD, so does make more money. On the other hand, he pays state income tax, high car license fees, and got hit with the MN minimum alternative tax (not the federal but the state alternative tax which MN also has). And based on my recent visit there, groceries are higher across the board. He wants to return to SD and plans to when he gets some loans paid off.
My lawyer child works in SD for much less than she would make in another state, but this kid happens to appreciate living in SD.
The same holds true for accounting jobs, secretarial jobs, nursing etc. I know a nurse who worked at the Mayo Clinic and moved back to SF and took a substantial wage cut.
I'm tired of teachers crying about their wages when it affects everyone in SD basically. Comparing to WY doesn't work either as don't they get much of their state monies from oil wells? Seems SD is not that lucky.
And like it or not, teachers do not work the same hours as other professions.
Reg job - 251 days yearly (365 minus 104 weekend days and 10 holidays) = 2008 hours worked yearly
Teacher - 180 days = 1440 hours worked yearly
That's a difference of 568 hours or 71 days. Does the extra work teachers do during the school year really = 71 days?
I'm not bashing teachers. They work hard at a job that I admit I couldn't and wouldn't want to do. But you do have to accept the fact that summers off and Christmas vacation are perks not afforded most other vocations.
Hey! Here's a cool toy: About.com's Cost of Living Wizard! You can punch in your salary and metro area (sorry, SD: only SF, RC, and Pierre; no Madison or Rutland) and get an estimate of how much you'd have to make to maintain your standard of living in other cities!
ReplyDeleteSo I punch in SD's 2004-2005 average teacher salary, $34,040, set it to Sioux Falls, and ask what would happen if I moved to St. Cloud, MN. Ooo, I take a hit: I'd have to earn $41,018 to live the way $34,040 lets me live in Sioux Falls. So living and teaching in Sioux Falls is a heck of a deal, right?
Oh, but then I look Minnesota's average teacher pay in '04-05: $46,906. Even after paying higher taxes and consumer prices, a teacher moving from Sioux Falls to St. Cloud actually comes out $5,888 to the good. Oof.
Hey, numbers-crunchers! Feel free to hunt down more updated wages, try them out in the calculator, and report your findings here!
Oh, and I forgot: in Minnesota, your insurance policy is guaranteed to cover maternity costs. So when a new teacher in Minnesota has a baby, she keeps much more money in her pocket with which to feed and clothe and educate that baby than her counterpart in Sioux Falls does. Ah, the pro-life state....
ReplyDeleteNonnie, I think earlier comments already address much of what you say. The hours breakdown versus other professions really doesn't matter: the reality is that if we are competing with other states where the teaching hours are similar, we have to offer competitive wages, or we lose good teachers. See the article Jack linked: Wyoming's teacher pay does matter. When Sundance is at the bottom of Wyoming's teacher salary pile, but can still outbid Spearfish for first-year teachers by $8,000, Spearfish suffers. Spearfish's superintendent says the applicant pool for elementary jobs has dropped from 75-100 to 15-20. One fifth as many applicants as before. That's 80% of folks who used to be in our labor pool not even looking at us. That's one fifth of the talent to choose from. That's not good for South Dakota. We can't close our eyes to the rest of the world: they're cherry-picking our best talent, and we have to find a way to compete.
ReplyDeleteIt shouldn't be just SD teachers crying about their low wages. Everyone in South Dakota should be crying about it. We should be ashamed of the lack of respect for education that our perpetually low teacher salaries represent. When we have fewer teachers to choose from, the quality of our education system will inevitably suffer. As good as we say our education system is, just imagine how much better it could be if we were able to keep more of our good teachers in the profession and in the state.
Actually, Nonnie, I have yet to meet a teacher that has put in JUST an eight-hour day! When I taught, it was more like 12-13 hours a day.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend that taught K-12 music, coached, directed the school play, and also coordinated the fine arts dinner. With all that, plus the prep work that he had to do at home, he figured he made LESS than minimum wage. Oh, and his contract wasn't renewed at the end of the year.
I can understand why these other states are going after our teachers. And if I was still teaching, I'd probably have either Minnesota or Iowa license plates, too!
I never hear SD School Boards or Administrators complain they can't find teachers for open positions. I do know a college student who just hopes she can get a job in the region when she graduates. You can provide data until you are blue in the fingers but I don't see a crisis.
ReplyDeleteCory,
ReplyDeleteSorry for clogging up your blog with a long post.
nonnie calculates that the difference between a "regular job" and teaching is "568 hours or 71 days." He then asks "[d]oes the extra work teachers do during the school year really = 71 days?"
I can only speak from my perspective. I average 2 hours of correcting/grading during a school night. I probably have stuff in front of me for 4 hours but I'm not going to count the time I spend watching "Heroes" or "CSI" when I probably work only during commercials. That's 180 X 2 for 360 hours.
I spend an average of 4 hours each Sunday correcting or doing prep work during the school year. That's 4 hours for 36 Sundays for a total of 144 hours.
I spend 11 Friday nights and 16 Saturdays coaching at debate tournaments or student congress sessions. I'll count the Friday nights at 4 hours each for a total of 44. The Saturdays are full days for a total of 128. I'll leave the National Tournament and National Tournament prep out of the equation.
Finally, I think that I can document more, but I know that I spend 50-100 hours doing prep work in the summer looking for new ways to cover material or re-tooling quizzes or units that didn't work during the previous school year. I'll leave out the reading of novels and short stories that I may decide to teach during the next year because that could be considered pleasure reading.
That's 360 + 144 + 44 + 128 + 50 = 726.
I don't think my numbers for correcting and school year prep are unique. In small schools, nearly every teacher has an extra-curricular activity that takes up time like debate does. In larger schools that fact is increasingly true as well.
I'll stipulate that almost every job goes beyond the 40 hrs/per week, but the idea that teachers work far few hours than others isn't as true as it appears with only a cursory inspection.
Finally, and I really don't want to open up a nasty can of worms, but I will anyway, teachers don't control the calendar. I willingly grant that many teachers would scream loudly if the school calendar were lengthened, but their screams would be no louder than dozens of other constituencies. In fact, I think that a calendar that had 6 or 7 weeks on and 2 weeks off for the entire year would be far more beneficial for students. I also guarantee that no legislators, even those who expect no votes from their teacher constituents, would support that change.
Anonymous: "You can provide data until you are blue in the fingers but I don't see a crisis."
ReplyDeleteGalileo presented a lot of data and faced the same sort of resistance from people so wedded to their worldview that they couldn't see truth. His opponents were able to turn the screws on Galileo so hard that they could force him to publicly recant his data-driven argument that the Earth moves around the sun. But (according to legend), he muttered under his breath, "And yet it moves!"
Anonymous may not see a crisis because Anonymous refuses to look at data. Instead, Anonymous keeps her/his eyes shut to anything outside her/his own limited experience. There's much merit in understanding the world through one's own senses, but one must also be prepared to augment that understanding with objective information and scientific data from places outside one's neighborhood. It may make us uncomfortable, it may require us to do more reading, and it may upset some comfortable parochial views, but it will also bring us all closer to understanding the world as it really is, not as we wish it were. Reality over rhetoric -- that's what this underpaid teacher tried to get the kids to understand... apparently in contravention of the way some of their anonymous parents think.
Against such resistance to data-driven, objective research, it can be really hard to move public opinion. And yet, slowly, minutely, I must believe, it can move.
Leo! Thanks for your voice and your calculations! Let's see, 726 hours divided by 8 hours per workday... 90.75 workdays. Nonnie, sounds like you're getting at least 20 days from Leo for free. How many of your friends will show up at the office for four straigth weeks for no pay?
ReplyDeleteCarolhei...you missed one of my main points!! You may make 6000 more in St. Cloud, but you are also going to PAY for it!! In minnesota there is state income tax and cost of living is HIGHER! which means that your mortgage or rent is higher, your grociers cost more, everything costs more, that's why it's called cost of living! YOur dollar goes a lot farther in SD than it does in MN! I pulled my data from the bureau of labor statistics! Then I simply took the average wage in MN compared with what the average teacher wage was and found that teachers make 2% less than the average. I did the same thing in SD and found that teachers make 20% more on the average. If you want more money in your pocket, you best stay put...ESPECIALLY since we just increased teacher pay this year! Also on your comment about what your worth! My dad always told me that "you are worth what someone is willing to pay you" and I think that is very true. Hidden underneath that, you may not catch, is that your worth is dependent on the current supply and demand of what skills you have to offer. If you were the only math teacher around and madison needed someone to fill ALG1,2 Geometry,and Calculus and you were it, my guess is you would get a little more than if you were only filling one of those. NOW, I'm NOT saying that teachers aren't worth anything, they are very important and are the reason that we have one of the best state education programs around. I'm guessing your a teacher, so is my mom, so might I be one day. You KNEW as well as she did and as well as I do, what teachers get paid a year when you decided to pursue that degree in college. If your degree gets you a better paying wage as you put it, then go after that better paying wage, I guarantee your money goes a lot further in SD then somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteOk - Forget the blue in the fingers comment. I think it overshadowed my point. I agree teachers are underpaid in SD, your data proves it. Plus look at education level and what they accomplish for society. My point is until SD school systems can't fill open positions with qualified teachers you are not going to see a sharp increase in pay.
ReplyDeleteI guess we're two ships passing in the night... but I'll try again.
ReplyDeleteAnon, I got your point. I agree: it costs more to live in Minnesota than in South Dakota. The data I cited from the About.com Cost of Living Calculator (which I link here so you can check the numbers yourself) said that a Sioux Falls resident making $34,040 (average SD teacher pay in 2004-2005) would have to make $41,018 to maintain the same standard of living in St. Cloud, MN. That's $7000 more, a big chunk of cash. But the average teacher makes almost $13,000 more in Minnesota. That's a net gain of $6000 (not to mention having a much shorter drive to the next U2 concert). Even with the higher cost of living, the average teacher is better off financially in Minnesota.
"My dad always told me that 'you are worth what someone is willing to pay you' and I think that is very true. Hidden underneath that, you may not catch, is that your worth is dependent on the current supply and demand of what skills you have to offer."
The whole point of this post is that teachers shold catch that message. It's not hidden at all: South Dakota makes very clear through its consistently low wages that it values teachers less than any other state in the country. South Dakota says very clearly, "Sure, we need teachers, but only if you're not willing to work for effectively $6000 less than what your services are worth in Minnesota (or $6500 less in Wyoming, after cost-of-living adjustment)." And sure, if there's a teacher shortage, the market will respond by raising wages. I'd just rather not wait until we get to that crisis level and go through years of putting our kids in the hands of teachers drawn from ever-dwindling candidate pools before we do something to keep our best and brightest.
And keep in mind that the labor market for teachers doesn't fully follow the fun free-market rules of typical business. I can't walk into a job interview in a South Dakota public school and negotiate my salary. Even if a school were hard up for applicants, I couldn't ask for more pay than the salary schedule hammered out in contract negotiations by the school board and the teachers' organization. (At least not as far as I know -- teachers, if you've ever been able to negotiate a contract independently of the standard process, let me know!)
Anon 10:13: understood. And as I mentioned above (sorry -- I reply to some comments before reading and posting others), I alas agree: we probably won't see a solution until we hit the crisis point of more schools getting zero qualified applicants for positions.
ReplyDeleteMaybe those who would justify low pay for teachers by free market principles should consult Henry Ford (thanks to SD Watch's Todd Epp for turning me on to this quote!):
ReplyDelete"There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible."
"I can't walk into a job interview in a South Dakota public school and negotiate my salary." That's true. But it's also true for federal and state jobs other than teachers. My hubby worked for the feds at their set wage scale. Irregardless of what he thought he was worth, he got paid the set rate. Same with my lawyer daughter who works for the state, and her pay BTW is not that much higher than the average teacher pay in the state!
ReplyDeleteAnd I know lots of teachers, elementary mostly, who can't find jobs teaching in the state. In other words, except for maybe math/science slots, there is a surplus of teachers in the state. Maybe another reason wages are lower than desired.
IMO people need to look at the market for their desired profession before investing four years in college to get that degree. If there isn't a market, maybe they should pursue something else. Awhile ago there was a nursing surplus, now there's a shortage and wages are higher. Same thing might happen with teaching.
"IMO people need to look at the market for their desired profession before investing four years in college to get that degree. If there isn't a market, maybe they should pursue something else."
ReplyDeleteNonnie, not only is it unrealistic to expect eighteen-year-olds to figure out exactly what they want to do for the rest of their lives before they get to college, it’s also utterly unrealistic to expect them to predict where the economy is going to go over the next forty years. Globalization, merely one aspect of the economy, can change market forces in the blink of an eye. The market for a desired profession may be great one year but terrible five years later. Our current reality (and with all due respect, one that many in the older generations didn’t have to experience themselves) is that young people face having to reinvest themselves and their finances several times over in education and reeducation due to changes in the market.