The teacher 'pay penalty' is trending in the wrong direction post-pandemic
Published in Slideshow World
Teaching vacancies continue to plague public schools after the COVID-19 pandemic as modestly paying careers in education, often pursued for their fulfilling nature, are growing even less financially feasible for teachers nationwide.
HeyTutor analyzed data from the Economic Policy Institute to illustrate the compensation teachers forgo when pursuing a career in education and the role of stagnant pay in the ongoing teacher shortage.
More teachers were dissatisfied with their jobs than workers overall, and pay was the least satisfying part of being in the profession, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey of public school K-12 teachers nationwide.
Teachers' growing job frustration may be affecting school districts' ability to attract and retain the next generation of teachers as existing educators resign or retire. Despite a yearslong teaching shortage, the situation has gotten worse post-pandemic. There are considerably fewer incoming teachers, according to the steady decline in enrollment for teaching degrees since the 2008-09 school year. In at least eight states, teacher turnover rates have reached their highest point in five years.
The shortage comes when retaining qualified teaching staff is extremely important. Teachers are tasked with helping students compensate for the learning loss incurred over the 2020-21 and 2021-22 academic years disrupted by the pandemic. However, nearly half (45%) of public school leaders reported their schools needing more staffing in recent years, according to a National Center for Education Statistics survey. And two-thirds of public school principals said it's due to a lack of qualified candidates.
Unlike other industries, like nursing, where a worker shortage tends to drive up pay to attract new entrants, increased teacher demand hasn't boosted pay.Instead, the gap between what teachers earn and all other jobs that require a college education is widening: The average teacher made $1,329 a week in 2022, about a quarter less than other college graduates who earned $2,167 per week on average.
As of 2022, the gap has more than quadrupled in roughly the last three decades. That's according to a recent EPI analysis of Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data, which shows the so-called "pay penalty" among teachers has widened to its most extreme since 1960.
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