Kentucky Teacher Compensation lags behind the South: SREB Teacher Compensation Dashboard

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With the issue of education funding and teacher pensions looming in the 2021 General Assembly, a new tool from the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) shines a light on the importance of the issue of teacher compensation for Kentucky. The SREB Teacher Compensation Dashboard shows that compensation for teachers in Kentucky lags behind most other states in the South. Considering the fact that teacher pay in the South is behind the national average, Kentucky teachers are among the lowest paid in the country.

According to the site, teachers are paid 20 percent lower in the South than similarly educated professionals in the region. Kentucky ranks in the lowest quintile of southern states in terms of net pay. The net pay for new as well as experienced teachers in Kentucky is about $10,000 behind the regional average and even further behind the nation.

Kentucky's retirement system is one of the bright spots of the analysis. The state's pension is one of three southern states at the highest quintile in terms of the state's contribution and the level of benefit to employees.

This data from SREB confirm the importance of attracting and retaining high quality teachers. It is perhaps the top issue in education for our state. The research evidence is clear and conclusive about the importance of a highly qualified teacher on student learning. Various studies, such as Benbry (1998), Byrk (2010), and Sherman (2006) have demonstrated that teachers matter more to student achievement than any other aspect of schooling.

Teacher walkouts and strikes in several states over the past few years have drawn increasing public attention to the deterioration of teacher pay nationwide. A study by the Economic Policy Institute identified the teacher wage gap and the failure of teacher compensation to keep pace with the pay of other professional with commensurate levels of education and experience. The average weekly wages of public school teachers (adjusted for inflation) decreased $27 from 1996 to 2017. Weekly wages of other college graduates rose by $137 during that same period (Allegretto, 2018).

Retention is becoming a particularly costly problem for school districts. Carver-Thomas (2017) estimates the turnover rate in Kentucky to be about 16 percent per year. The same study reports that more than half of those leaving the profession cite job dissatisfaction as the primary reason. With the cost of losing each teacher at about $21,000, the cost of such turnover in Kentucky alone is $134 million (Carver-Thomas, 2017). The challenges that teachers are facing with the pandemic are making matters even worse.

The recent PDK poll on attitudes toward public education conducted by Phi Delta Kappan indicate public support for teachers on a wide range of issues from pay to pensions to support for the professional overall, however, a majority (54 percent) of parents surveyed indicated, for the first time in 50 years, they would not want their child being a teacher (PDK poll, 2018).

Heading into the legislative session during these tumultuous times, it is critical that advocates of public education be vigilant about the importance to continued financial support for schools-- which includes teacher compensation and pensions.

References

Allegretto, S. & Mishel, L. (2018). The teacher pay penalty has hit a new high: Trends in teacher wage and compensation gaps through 2017. Economic Policy Institute. https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-gap-2018/

Bembry, K. L., Jordan, H. R., Gomez, E., Anderson, M. C., & Mendro, R. L. (1998). Policy implications of long term teacher effects on student achievement. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA.

Boren, M. (2020). Teacher compensation dashboard. Southern Regional Education Board. https://www.sreb.org/interactive/teacher-compensation-dashboard

Byrk, A., et al (2010). Organizing schools for improvement: Lessons from Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Carver-Thomas, D. & Darling-Hammond, L. (2017). Teacher turnover: Why it matters and what we can do about it. Learning Policy Institute. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/teacher-turnover-report

Darling-Hammond, L., et al (2017). Empowered educators: How high performing systems shape teaching quality around the world. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

PDK poll: Public attitudes toward the public schools (2018). Phi Delta Kappan Educational Foundation. http://pdkpoll.org

Sherman, H. & Ding, C. (2006). Teaching effectiveness and student achievement: Examining the relationship. Educational Research Quarterly, 29 (4) p. 39-49.

Teachers matter: Understanding teachers' impact on student achievement (2012). Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. https://www.rand.org/pubs/corporate_pubs/CP693z1-2012-09.html



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