Report Finds Teachers' Pay Is More than Adequate Across the Country

Supporting the almost-universal belief that teachers are underpaid, Education Week published an article on January 10 stating, "public school teachers nationwide make 88 cents for every dollar earned in 16 comparable occupations," including accountants, architects, clergy, computer programmers, insurance underwriters, physical therapists, and registered nurses.

The long-lived conventional wisdom is that teachers are underpaid. That belief is virtually unanimous. But it runs contrary to many respectable research studies that conclude teacher salaries are at least equal to, if not in excess of, compensation for comparable occupations:

• Jay P. Greene and Marcus A Winters found that the average public school teacher in the United States earned $34.06 per hour in 2005, and the average public school teacher was paid 36 percent more per hour than the average non-sales white-collar worker and 11 percent more than the average professional specialty and technical worker.
  
  
• Richard Vedder, an Ohio University professor of economics and senior fellow at the Independent Institute found that teachers earn more per hour than architects, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, statisticians, biological and life scientists, registered nurses, university-level foreign-language teachers, and editors and reporters.
  
  
• Michael Podgursky, an economics professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia and expert on teacher compensation concluded that when adjusted for annual weeks of work, teacher pay and benefits compare favorably with those of other college-educated workers.

To objectively evaluate teacher benefits relative to other occupations, several relevant conditions need to be factored in. For example:

• Teachers work about 20 percent fewer days annually than other white-collar workers.
  
  
• Consequently, a teacher paid $60,000 per year is actually being paid $72,000 at the adjusted rate.
  
  
• Add another 25 percent (on average) for retirement and health insurance, and the annual benefit package increases to $87,000.

Report Finds Teachers' Pay Is More than Adequate Across the Country - by Richard G. Neal - The Heartland Institute

For Green and Winters study:

Civic Report 50 | How Much Are Public School Teachers Paid?

For Vedder study:

Please wait while you are redirected

For Podgursky study:

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/...2podgursky.pdf

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Americans Indians support oil drilling in ANWR.

Interesting but in Oklahoma we are close to the bottom for teacher pay.

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An American first and always a Conservative.

The answer here is easier than you think. Everything listed in the previous studies is true, it's just that they almost always fail to reflect the fact that a teacher's year is three months shorter than most jobs. If you take that same per-hour rate and stretch it over a full 365 day year, you'll find that teachers really do make way less than most comprable professions as the first paragraph indicates.

Why are they comparing teachers, that require a graduate degree with other careers that only require an undergraduate degree?

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Among his other...er...'talents', Gay-Rejected Repressed Razzie is a FIRST CLASS Liar.

Except for one thing - they don't work as long as anyone else ergo they don't make as much as others at teaching. If I only worked 10 months out of the year but made 90% of what others with my educational level made I am still ahead of them for the time I did work. Or do you think that we should pay teachers for not working, put them on welfare during the summer months?

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Its better to have fussed and crabbed then never to have fussed at all - Lucy

Actually it is two months shorter...but your theory is correct. Most teachers I know work the summer getting ready for the next year...non-pay. Very few of them go on true vacation.

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Among his other...er...'talents', Gay-Rejected Repressed Razzie is a FIRST CLASS Liar.

You think teachers don't work during the summer?

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Among his other...er...'talents', Gay-Rejected Repressed Razzie is a FIRST CLASS Liar.

Because a graduate degree in teaching is about the same as a high school diploma.

I am always amused at the argument that teachers don't make enough. How much is enough? How many teachers are in the profession against their will? Were teachers drafted into the field? Were they lied too about what they would be paid? Were they duped into thinking they would make more money or have other perks?

Teachers chose to teach at the income level offered. If they don't like what they are making they should quit and use their education and skills to make more money if they can.

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Its better to have fussed and crabbed then never to have fussed at all - Lucy

Teachers should be forced to work for free for local businesses that pay school taxes.

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Environmental profiteering is the biggest threat to the American people.

During the summer, Teachers can work to pick up trash and remove graffiti in their local community.
All Teachers need a mandatory sexual abuse class.

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Environmental profiteering is the biggest threat to the American people.