PrintInflation outstrips teacher salaries
Compensation out of step with rising demands, AFT salary survey reveals
For the first time since the 1999-2000 school year, the average teacher salary failed to keep up with inflation, the latest AFT salary survey reveals.
The survey, released in October, also reports that compensation for teachers over the last 10 years increased at a far slower rate than salaries for other professionals.
The decline in teacher compensation comes at a time when growing numbers of teachers are enhancing their credentials by participating in professional development, earning advanced degrees and achieving national board certification. They also are facing increased professional demands in terms of licensure and content-knowledge requirements under federal law.
“Current salaries fail to reflect the professional qualifications, preparation and challenges that teachers must meet every day in the classroom,” says AFT president Edward J. McElroy. “At the very least, teachers’ pay should be a measure of their educational backgrounds and the demands of their jobs.”
The AFT survey found that the average teacher salary in the 2003-04 school year was $46,597, a 2.2 percent increase from the year before. This falls short of the rate of inflation for 2004, which was 2.7 percent. When adjusted for inflation, the 2003-04 salary actually drops 0.4 percent from 2002-03.
The survey also highlights a 10-year trend in which teacher salaries have grown at a significantly slower rate than private sector pay. Between 1994 and 2004, inflation-adjusted teacher salaries only gained about $100 per year. By contrast, earnings growth in the private sector was five times as high.
And the gap continues to widen between teacher salary growth and salaries in other professions that require similar educational backgrounds. Average teacher salaries gained just over 2 percent after inflation, while the salaries of other professionals grew between 5 percent and 14.4 percent over the same 10-year period.
The AFT survey also shows that:
• From 1994 to 2004, average teacher salaries, when adjusted for inflation, dropped in 22 states.
• The average beginning teacher salary in the 2003-04 school year was $31,704, up just 1.1 percent from the previous year.
Even these results may understate the crisis in teacher compensation. The survey does not reflect state-level attempts to drastically reduce or eliminate negotiated pension and healthcare benefits.
The Survey and Analysis of Teacher Salary Trends also features state-by-state teacher salary information. The report appears on the AFT Web site, www.aft.org/salary/index.htm.
Locals in New York City, Virgin Islands reach contract settlements
UFT delegate assembly recommends ratification of
tentative agreement
After working for two and a half years without a contract, educators in New York City have a new tentative contract. In early October, the United Federation of Teachers reached an agreement with the city that includes a 15 percent pay increase over 52 months, a new bachelor’s degree salary line for paraprofessionals and what the union termed a “commonsense” approach on school reforms.
UFT president and AFT vice president Randi Weingarten said the tentative agreement recognizes New York City teachers for their hard work and the outstanding results they have achieved with their students. “We’ve worked long and hard to find ways to pay teachers significantly more and to craft the fact-finders’ recommendations in a way that will work for kids and their teachers,” she said. “We said the fact-finders’ report had its pluses and minuses. This agreement has turned those minuses into pluses.”
A panel of independent fact-finders had recommended that all UFT-represented educators get a pay increase of 11.4 percent compounded over 37 months in exchange for 10 more minutes of tutoring and more discretion for principals in hiring and assignments.
Additionally, the agreement increases the amount of retroactive pay teachers will receive by nearly 65 percent above the fact-finders’ recommendations.
Weingarten said she was particularly pleased that the agreement closes the pay gap between UFT members and their colleagues in the suburbs. “This agreement is critical to attracting and retaining the highest-quality teachers in our schools,” she said.
The tentative agreement provides important safeguards for the city’s educators, including the retention of tenure and the right to due process. Salaries for new teachers would increase 9 percent, except for those who started this year, who get the full 15 percent increase.
The settlement also creates a new salary line for paraprofessionals who earn a bachelor’s degree and includes important changes that benefit nurses, psychologists, social workers and occupational and physical therapists.
The AFT affiliate represents more than 90,000 teachers, paraprofessionals, secretaries, counselors and other school employees. The contract would run through Oct. 12, 2007.
Contract gains for Virgin Islands’ educators
Teachers and paraprofessionals in the Virgin Islands have a new contract after members in St. Thomas-St. John and St. Croix overwhelmingly ratified an agreement the first week of October that will bring an immediate pay increase of close to $1,200 per member. The members of AFT Locals 1825 and 1826 had been working without a contract for months, so the one-time monetary incentive is for the 2004-05 school year.
In subsequent years through 2007, the teachers and paraprofessionals can advance according to the salary schedule. That might seem routine in most school districts, but many educators in the Virgin Islands have had no significant advancement on a schedule for years due to expired contracts and insufficient money to fund the schedule, noted Vernelle de Lagarde, president of the St. Thomas-St. John local.
With the salary step increases, she said, some members might see increases of nearly $10,000, depending on experience, education and other duties they have taken on.
Besides the financial gains, the unions fended off efforts by the commissioner of education to unilaterally extend their work day by 30 minutes, which would have totaled 15 extra days per year with no additional compensation.
St. Croix local president Tyrone Molyneaux said that, in addition to pressing for salary improvements, the union will keep pushing for better working conditions. The AFT represents about 2,000 teachers and paraprofessionals in the Virgin Islands.
“This was a good exercise in trying to correct our salary schedules,” de Lagarde said, adding that the union received help from AFT staff as well as the island’s lieutenant governor—in addition to a federal mediator—to secure the agreement.
Engaging and empowering students
through photography
Project spotlights school building disrepair, as students
become activist
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the photo documentary of Baltimore City’s public schools was priceless.
Equipped with 35mm point-and-shoot cameras, 60 students from grades 3 to 12 snapped more than 1,500 pictures documenting the physical conditions of their schools between July 2004 and April 2005.
“Empowerment through photography is what I call it,” says Chinquapin Middle School teacher Helen Washington, a member of the Baltimore Teachers Union (BTU).
The project was initiated by Critical Exposure, a Washington, D.C.-based organization aiming to influence public policy for equality in education.
The project “is really about giving the students who are most affected by the inequities in our public education system the tools to express themselves and fight for reform,” says Adam Levner, co-director of Critical Exposure.
The disrepair of Baltimore City schools is an ongoing issue in the community—and well documented in the media. According to studies commissioned by the school system, more than $950 million is needed to repair facilities and upgrade classrooms.
Washington and her Chinquapin colleague Tenerra McFadden, who also is a BTU member, worked with more than two dozen students who contributed to the project during a summer 2004 program sponsored by Community Law in Action, a project partner of Critical Exposure.
The full photo documentary was unveiled during an April exhibit at Gallery 1448 in Baltimore. And partial displays have been exhibited at other galleries and events around the city. The photos are accompanied by essays explaining the images and how those conditions affect the learning environment.
“The kids enjoyed it,” says McFadden. “They didn’t just take pictures. They were given the opportunity to speak about what they saw and how they felt about it.” And that, she adds, “helped our goal of turning these kids into community leaders.”
“They had a ton of people coming in to view what they did,” says Washington, noting that at the beginning of the project, many students were skeptical that adults would take the time to see what kids had to say. “By the end of the program, [the students] realized that people were interested.”
Critical Exposure will expand its project this school year to include New York City or Washington, D.C., says Levner. For more information about Critical Exposure, visit www.criticalexposure.org.
