Statement by Antonia Cortese, Executive Vice President,
American Federation of Teachers,
On New Economic Policy Institute Report, 'The Teaching Penalty'

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) today released "The Teaching Penalty: Teacher Pay Losing Ground," which highlights the growing gap in salary growth between teachers and other professions.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—"The Teaching Penalty" is a new addition to the long list of teacher compensation reports reaching the same conclusion: Teachers continue to be vastly underpaid compared with similar workers. This makes recruitment and retention of the best and brightest increasingly difficult, even as the nation recognizes the growing need for high-quality teaching. 

As the EPI report points out, most "merit pay" schemes are destined to fail because they don't address the issue of a competitive base salary for all teachers.  Salary growth for teachers must be on par with the salary growth in other professions. Unless they are part of a comprehensive plan to develop and support high-quality teaching, merit pay plans will produce the same dismal results that they have in the past.

Teachers are the most important in-school influence on student achievement. We can't discuss recruiting and retaining high quality teachers until we are ready to take a serious look at the very real financial penalty assessed to those who choose a career in the classroom.

For additional information on teacher salary growth compared with other professions, visit the American Federation of Teachers Salary Survey page online: www.aft.org/salary.

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