Adrienne Kumik lives in a modest apartment, makes low monthly payments on a used pickup truck, and goes on vacation only if her mother pays for it. Despite her frugal lifestyle, she can't make ends meet.
"During the last two weeks of every month, my checking account is flat empty," says the sixth-grade teacher at Woodcrest Elementary School in Fullerton.
A member of the Fullerton Elementary Teachers Association (FETA), she earns less than $32,000 a year. Now in her third year of teaching, the newly single 31-year-old is wondering whether she can afford to stay in the teaching profession.
"By Orange County standards, my rent is pretty low," says Kumik. "I have a low car payment. But it's very hard to survive. For the past couple of months, I've had to pull money out of my savings account just to make it through the month. I'm a responsible person, and I want to have a little money saved. I'm worried about my truck, because it has 100,000 miles on it. When something major happens, I have to put everything on credit cards."
With a large part of his salary going to repay student loans, Carlos Cohen sometimes feels like teaching is indentured servitude. Still, the Santa Barbara world history teacher says he's in it for the long haul.
Kumik says, "I love my job. I love my school. I love the staff and the students here. But the frustration of being dead broke at the end of every month is hard to take. When you go into teaching, everyone says you're not going to get paid much. My attitude in college was, 'I'm not in it for the money.' But the reality is that when the bills come due every month, you do need money."
Lately, Kumik has been updating her resume. "A friend of mine works in sales and there's a position open in her company. If I went into sales, my income would instantly go up $20,000 a year."
WITH CALIFORNIA FACING a huge shortage of teachers - as many as 300,000 may be needed over the next decade - the state cannot afford to lose teachers like Kumik. But that's what's happening, largely because of low salaries.
About one in five teachers leaves the profession within the first three years on the job, reports Education Week's new study, Who Should Teach? To make up for the teacher shortage, California has filled many openings with uncredentialed instructors. More than 28,000 emergency permits were requested this year, compared with 6,000 a year before the state began its effort to reduce class sizes. Statewide, more than 12 percent of teachers are uncredentialed, but the figure is much higher in urban schools. In some low-income districts, more than half of the newly hired teachers hold emergency credentials. And it's common for teachers, once they earn their credential, to head for a district that pays more. Thus, schools in poor areas with mostly minority children continually maintain a higher percentage of uncredentialed teachers.
While there is a teacher shortage in California, there is no shortage of qualified teachers. "If every person with a credential were teaching, we'd have an overabundance of teachers," says John Mockler, executive director of the California Board of Education. "We keep churning out funding for teacher education programs, but teachers are choosing to do other things. An immense number of credentialed people never teach - or else they leave the profession."
Molly Whiteley's part-time position training future teachers like Lesley Shapiro (right) at San Francisco State provides medical benefits for her family; her day job at Lagunitas Elementary in Marin covers only her own benefits.
"You have wonderful, qualified people out there who would be teaching if they could make a living at it," says Kumik. "It's unfair. Teachers are expected to act professionally and exert their moral influence on kids, yet they don't get paid like professionals. I'm expected to dress like a professional, but I don't have the income for that kind of wardrobe. I have a professional degree, beyond four years of college, but I don't have a competitive salary. This year I paid $1,000 for classroom supplies out of my own pocket. When I think about leaving teaching, I get depressed, because I actually feel like I am accomplishing something in my classroom."
Salary woes are not just afflicting new teachers. Frustration is also growing for longtime members of the teaching profession who have maxed out on the salary scale.
"I have been teaching for 14 years and I'm stuck at the top of the salary schedule," says one Santa Barbara teacher.
"It's disheartening to think I could be in this profession for the rest of my life, and never make more money except for cost-of-living adjustments (COLA). I could go into administration, but I'd miss being in the classroom. That's my calling."
The teacher, who has earned a $47,000 salary for the last three years, says her district has offered teachers a 1 percent raise this year. "That's less than $1,000, and it's not going to help me much," she says. "It might put a bit of gas in my car."
The Education Week study shows that, despite an economic boom, the gap between teacher salaries and those of other professionals with similar education levels has been widening. The average salary for teachers in California - a state with one of the highest costs of living - is $45,400. In today's political climate of school reform, longtime teachers who have experienced years of budget cuts and received minuscule raises are being asked to take on more and more responsibilities - including after-school tutoring, mentoring new teachers, and raising student achievement. And a higher salary is usually not part of the deal.
The longer teachers remain in the profession, the wider the salary gap becomes. In 1998, teachers between the ages of 22 and 28 earned an average of $7,894 less than other college graduates of the same age. That gap was three times greater for teachers aged 44 to 50, who earned $23,655 less than people with similar education levels in other occupations.
Compared with those in other occupations, advanced degrees yield only half the payoff for teachers. In 1998, teachers with master's degrees earned $12,425 more than teachers with bachelor's degrees, while people in other professions earned an average of $24,648 more with a master's. That all adds up to much lower earning potential for teachers who remain in the classroom - even those who earn advanced degrees.
Kumik says that she would like to get her master's degree, but fears doing so would put her in debt. "Any extra money I make would be used to pay off the loans for years."
In contrast to the tiny raises that teachers receive, superintendents tend to receive whopping raises. For example, teachers in San Francisco, whose salaries last year ranged from $31,172 to $56,246, received an 8 percent increase between 1996 and 1998. Their superintendent earned $199,800 last year, having received a 40 percent increase during the same period.
The matter of underpaying teachers has become more galling during recent years as a booming job market replaced the recession of the '80s and early '90s. "While the prosperity train raced across the nation in the latter half of the 1990s, teachers have been left at the station," says the Education Week report.
The issue of teacher salary, or lack thereof, is not lost on high school students who consider entering the profession. A nationwide poll sponsored by the Milken Family Foundation found that 55 percent of students say they have little or no interest at all in a teaching career. Among the reasons, naturally, is low salary.
Ana Rudolph, a sophomore at Terra Nova High School in Pacifica, says she thought about becoming a teacher but decided against it. "Most of my teachers live in apartments," she explains. "I would like to own a house someday."
In the 1960s and '70s, more than 20 percent of college freshmen planned to pursue teaching careers. In the 1990s, it remained at about 10 percent. In 1998, this figure plummeted to 7.9 percent, due to a falling unemployment rate and red-hot job market for college graduates with entry-level jobs that pay more than teaching.
Teachers are responsible for educating society's future workforce and leaders, but are not given a livable wage. Finally, the realization is dawning that shortchanging teachers also impacts society. The shortage of credentialed classroom teachers has made it clear that low teacher salary is not just a problem for teachers; it is everybody's problem.
"Low salaries are the direct cause of the teaching shortage," asserts CTA President Wayne Johnson. "Until there are decent salaries, we are not going to attract and retain a qualified teaching force."
With increasingly higher expectations and low wages, the system is "psychotic," says Johnson. "On one hand, we are raising standards in the classroom and requiring more tests and credentials for teachers. On the other hand, we are handing out emergency credentials like apples on the corner as the teacher shortage continues to grow. We are not attracting enough qualified people to the profession because the salary is not there.
"People say, 'I can be a computer programmer and make twice the money.'"
What determines teacher salary?
Teachers are underpaid because of outright discrimination and a funding system that perpetuates unfair salaries, says Johnson.
Low teacher salaries are based on the sexist and outdated notion that teaching is "women's work" and therefore not as valuable as other work, maintains Johnson and other education experts. While such thinking goes back to the dark ages and is blatantly unfair, it nonetheless persists.
"Teaching was and is considered women's work, and has not ever been valued as a legitimate profession," says Johnson. "Seventy-six percent of teachers in California are women. Ninety percent of superintendents are men." The superintendents' salaries, he says, are two to three times teacher salaries.
Michael Kirst, a professor of education at Stanford University and co-director of Policy Analysis for California Education, agrees with Johnson. "Before women's liberation, teaching was considered to be a temporary job that a woman took before she got married." And if a woman kept teaching after she got married, it was considered to be a "second income" to supplement the earnings of her husband, the primary breadwinner. "Women made up the teaching ranks because few other professions were open to them. Women were either teachers, nurses, secretaries or housewives."
Gender bias aside, money for salaries is distributed in a manner that is extremely complicated and inequitable. As a result of the disparity between what districts receive and how funds are allocated, there is a wide range of teacher salaries throughout California - and even between neighboring districts. It is not uncommon for a "high wealth" district to be next door to an impoverished district. Even though the Serrano vs. Priest decision in 1972 was supposed to level the playing field, it has not happened. And unequal funding produces unequal salaries.
In a nutshell, each district has its own particular combination of federal, state and local sources. The amount primarily depends on: the average daily attendance (ADA); the general-purpose money based on ADA (the revenue limit); and special support for particular purposes (categorical aid). In some school districts, however, the property taxes exceed the revenue limit. These "basic aid" districts get less money from the state and more money from property taxes.
The San Francisco Chronicle printed an example of how such a system can work: "Of the 23 school districts in San Mateo County, the San Mateo-Foster City School District receives the least amount of unrestricted money from the state, $3,708 per pupil. The formula for calculating the figure is based on student attendance. In contrast, the county's wealthier districts receive so much money from property taxes that they rely on the state for only a small portion of their funding and have more money per student. Las Lomitas, a two-school K-8 district in Atherton and Menlo Park, had $5,066 to spend per pupil in 1998-99."
The San Mateo-Foster City School District has an average salary of $45,559, compared with $53,302 in the Las Lomitas District.
However, just because a district is categorized as "high wealth" doesn't always mean that teachers will be given a piece of the pie. High-wealth districts may use excess money for other priorities, such as music and art classes, fancier facilities or lower class size.
The La Honda-Pescadero school district is constantly training new teachers only to lose them to neighboring systems that pay more, says Eileen Short, playing a math game with students John Porter and Jake Hall.
Those who teach at rural schools tend to have lower salaries than their counterparts at urban schools, especially if they have lower ADA. Some rural schools have a funding system based on timber revenue. Even though logging is a dying industry, these districts still depend on timber income and have little money for salaries. In addition, the isolation of rural communities means competition from neighboring districts is not necessarily present.
Competition has a tremendous influence on what teachers are paid, notes Judy Thomas, manager of CTA's Research and Finance Department. When school districts are competing for qualified teachers, salaries tend to go up. As a result of some districts being able to offer more competitive salaries, their neighboring districts may have constant turnover as teachers are attracted to more affluent districts.
For example, the tiny La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District is at the bottom of the pay scale for San Mateo County, where the median price of a house topped $400,000 last year. "We still have a beginning teacher salary of just over $26,000, so when teachers get a couple years under their belts and are only making $28,000, they don't want to stay with us," says Eileen Short, president of the La Honda-Pescadero Teachers Association (LHPTA). "We are experiencing a greater turnover than in past years because we don't pay as much, and positions are available at nearby locations.
"We're in the position of constantly training new people, until they leave for a higher-paying job in another district. Then we train again. Not only are experienced teachers constantly training children, we're also constantly training teachers. Seasoned teachers take new teachers under their wings to help them become effective in the classroom, because it takes time and experience to be a good teacher. They get experience here and then they leave. And when there is constant teacher turnover, it is the students who suffer."
The strength of the bargaining unit plays a key role in determining salary as well.
Marc Knapp, chair of CTA's Financing Public Education Committee, discusses strategies to improve teacher salaries with committee members Jane McGill and George Triplett.
"How strong a local association is does play a part in what kind of salary you're going to get at the table," says Thomas. Striking can be an effective, albeit last-resort, tool for winning salary disputes, especially when there is community support for teachers.
When a community shows strong support for its teachers, it may be reflected in the size of paychecks. It is the community that elects the school board, which has final say in settling salary disputes. "If a community says, 'We want our teachers to be the highest paid in the county, and by the way you're up for re-election in six months,' that has an impact," says Thomas. "After all, school board members are politicians. Any time we have a crisis situation, we try to get community support. It can be very influential."
Administrators affect salary by advising school board members on how to act when there are negotiations. For example, if a superintendent lets school board members know teachers are fleeing District A to work in nearby District B for higher salaries, District A board members may then opt to pay teachers more.
During a crisis situation, it's often true that a district claiming to be "broke" suddenly "finds" the money to pay teachers more. And despite dire warnings that program cuts will have to be made after granting salary increases, the district continues operating its schools in a way that's business as usual. All too often in such districts, millions of "extra" dollars are sitting in reserves - and were available all the time.
In the Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District's 1997 impasse with teachers, it was revealed that the district had more than $20 million in reserves, even though teachers had gone without a salary increase for more than five years.
That same year, members of the Fremont Education Association (FEA) in Santa Clara County were angered to learn that reserves in their district had reached $9 million (the district had a total budget of just $43 million) while teacher salaries remained low compared to surrounding districts. Eventually the association worked out an agreement with the district to set a "target" amount for reserves at the end of each year. If the reserves are higher than the target, teachers are entitled to two-thirds, or 67 percent, of funds in excess of that target.
While FEA teachers were able to hammer out a deal on how to limit reserves, many other local chapters remain frustrated that teachers are going without raises while their districts continue to stockpile millions of dollars in reserves for a rainy day.
Is teaching a profession or a service?
People who are valued as professionals usually receive a livable wage. Gov. Gray Davis claims to value teachers, yet suggests that teaching is only a form of service, similar to joining the Peace Corps.
"There's no way we can offer the kind of compensation that, say, a 23-year-old ... can command from Silicon Valley. ... I'm trying to tap into idealism ... make teaching a selfless act of patriotism, something young people ... will do at least for a limited time," says Davis. "So why do I say that? Because the world is changing so rapidly it is unrealistic of us to think that people will enter the teaching profession and stay there 40 years. That was the model we grew up with and we tend to want to see it repeated, but that is not what's happening in the real world. If we can get someone to devote four years of their life, we will have accomplished something very significant."
That viewpoint is a slap in the face to teachers, who require five years of college to get to the point where they can perform what the governor considers altruism.
"The governor is negating those teachers who have dedicated their professional lives to teaching," says Short. "It's like saying teaching isn't a real job. He does nothing to recognize the contribution of experienced teachers to education. Instead, he's saying make a four-year commitment so he won't have to improve the salary situation."
"The governor is, in effect, saying that there should be high turnover of teachers, which is not in the best interest of our children," comments Cindy Heller, a former bargaining chair of SBTA who was just hired as executive director of the San Jose Teachers Association. "I think of teaching as a career and a profession. It's not an open door that you go in and out of. I've never regarded teaching as anything other than a profession - even though in other professions you have the potential to earn a decent living. The first years of a teacher's career may not be the best years of his or her teaching career. Teachers spend the first few years learning along with the kids."
Research shows that new teachers improve dramatically during their first few years on the job. Since it takes at least five years for new teachers to reach their full potential, experts say it is critical to keep teachers in the profession longer than that.
According to the Sacramento Bee's editorial board, "If California is serious about improving education in neighborhoods rich and poor, it will invest more in a career that is crying out for professionalism and deep commitment, not temporary stints from energetic youngsters who are waiting to get on with the rest of their lives. The governor should be leading Californians toward greater understanding of that need and its cost, not lulling them to sleep with the notion that a Peace Corps approach can lift the schools."
Rather than address the real reasons behind the teaching shortage and pay teachers a livable wage, Gov. Davis proposes Band-Aid solutions, including:
- A $50 million program offering forgivable $10,000 home loans to teachers who work at low-performing schools. The program would benefit only 5,000 teachers, a fraction of California's nearly 300,000 teachers.
- A $30,000 bonus for teachers in low-performing schools who are certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Currently, teachers can receive $10,000.
- Forgiving $11,000 in college loans for people who teach in schools ranked in the lower half.
- Another $20,000 in awards to top college graduates who become credentialed and teach five years at low-performing schools.
A measure Davis pushed through the Legislature last year allows teachers in low-performing schools to receive a bonus of up to $25,000 if the academic performance of pupils significantly exceeds a minimum growth target. However, it's likely that few if any teachers will receive that amount. Since the amount allocated for bonuses is limited to $50 million, there's only enough money for 2,000 awards.
This is considered "performance pay," which is intended to be shared among a "team" of teachers at a school. It differs from "merit pay," which goes to individual teachers and is opposed by CTA. So far, no benchmark or growth target has been set by which to determine which teachers will receive the awards.
"If the schools in this state improve at the same rate as they improved last year, the number of schools getting the award and the number of teachers sharing the award might only work out to the equivalent of $1,000 per teacher," comments CTA legislative advocate Sharon Scott Dow. Awards are to be shared by the school's certificated and administrative staff.
Some in the education field believe that teachers - especially those with hard-to-find skills - should be paid more than other teachers to reflect the demands of the labor market. However, stipends can cause complications. Once given, they are difficult to take away even if the demand for a particular specialty ends. For example, some bilingual teachers who have been receiving $5,000 stipends are fighting to keep them, even though Prop. 227 outlawed bilingual education.
"Stipends can create division in the teaching ranks," says Marc Knapp, president of the San Diego Education Association. "They create a situation where you give and take away. It's real easy to give stipends, and real tough to take them away. Rather than offering differential pay, I think the best approach is to give extra pay for extra work. Pay teachers more if they work a longer day or set up a mentoring program or do other extra things."
Those who propose stipends are obviously not fifth-grade teachers, says CTA's Thomas. "The knowledge that a fifth-grade teacher has to have is just as important as the knowledge a high school math teacher needs. A fifth-grade teacher has to know how to teach science, math, spelling, literature, art, social studies and more. That teacher is just as important as a high school math teacher. You are not comparing apples to apples, you're comparing apples to oranges. CTA's position is that teachers should be paid decent, professional salaries based on what they are contributing to society. That way, people will want to become math teachers - instead of going into the computer industry."
"One of the highest priorities of CTA is to get teacher salaries up to a professional level," says Johnson. "CTA is fully committed to raising teacher salaries."
CTA's Financing Public Education Committee (FPE) recently put forth a resolution calling for increasing the salary of fully credentialed teachers to a minimum of $40,000. CTA's State Council adopted the resolution in January.
"We are absolutely committed to a starting salary of $40,000," asserts Knapp, chair of the committee. "It ought to be higher, but it's a good starting point. Any fully credentialed teacher going into the profession ought to be going in with at least $40,000. We need stability in education, not a revolving door."
Some FPE members expressed concern that the plan only calls for increasing the salary of beginning teachers, rather than boosting all teachers on the salary scale. However, CTA's support for a $40,000 starting salary in no way changes its commitment to the principle of a 2-to-1 salary ratio, meaning that teachers on the high end of the salary schedule should earn twice as much as those on the beginning step. Thus, CTA's commitment to reaching a $40,000 starting salary is tied to its belief that the top salary should be at least $80,000.
CTA is also firmly committed to having a state education budget with fewer strings attached next year. If it succeeds, local districts would have more decision-making power on how to spend money. "The governor doesn't seem to trust local districts and bargaining agents to do the right thing with the money," says Thomas. "He shouldn't put so many conditions on the money that's available."
Assembly Bill 1117, introduced by Sen. Jack O'Connell with CTA support, is an incentive program to boost the minimum salary for fully qualified teachers to $32,000. It provides $50 million in funding for school districts and county offices of education that choose to participate. Allocated on a formula based on ADA, the incentive money has enabled some districts to free up dollars for salary increases for experienced teachers as well.
In an unprecedented move in December, leaders from 52 colleges and universities in California vowed to pressure state authorities to increase teacher salaries and make teacher education a valued and respected part of their college offerings.
The call for higher teacher salaries is getting attention at the national level as well. In his annual status report, U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley said, "This growing income disparity has become a fundamental roadblock to advancing American education."
The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning has called for $1.3 billion in new spending to raise the salaries of beginning teachers to $40,000 - as well as to pay for school tuition and living expenses of future teachers while they earn their full credentials.
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has called for dramatically increasing the pay of California's teachers, on the grounds that higher salaries will improve the quality of schools. Feinstein asserts that fully credentialed teachers with six to eight years of experience "ought to be making $60,000, the average salary for administrators, and be able to stay in the classroom where they're needed and teach." Fully credentialed teachers with six to eight years of experience now earn about $40,000.
Contrary to popular opinion, money is available to raise teacher salaries, asserts George Triplett, president of the Anaheim Secondary Teachers Association and a member of CTA's FPE Committee. "I don't see why we can't earn $80,000, or the same as practitioners of the law, medicine or engineering. Our profession is just as important - if not more so - than any of these professions in the scheme of things, and we should be compensated at the appropriate level."
"The money is there and it's always been there," says Triplett. "All money belongs to the nation and is considered national wealth. Some people have maneuvered the public into thinking that people in other professions should be compensated at a higher level than teachers. This has been done for political purposes. Why is there enough money to build new prisons but not new schools? Why is there money to build sports stadiums? It's a false premise that there is no money for teachers. The money is there. The real question is this: Do we have the political will to go after it?"
Raising California to the national average in per-pupil spending would help bring teacher salaries in line with other professions and help solve the teacher shortage created by low salaries. Because the state spends $1,011 below the national average of $6,638, California is currently ranked 40th among the 50 states in school spending. CTA is in the process of gathering signatures to qualify an initiative for the November ballot to bring state education funding in line with the national average.
Gov. Gray Davis doesn't support bringing the state's education spending level up to the national average. In November, when a surplus of more than $4 billion was revealed, the governor proposed a budget that would give schools only $100 million more than the minimum required by Proposition 98. (When Pete Wilson had a budget surplus of more than $4 billion the year before Davis took office, he spent $500 million more on schools than required by Prop. 98.)
In January, Davis proposed spending $257 million more than the minimum level required by Prop. 98. Now that it appears tax revenues will exceed earlier estimates by as much as $6 billion, it is unclear how much money will be given to schools. According to State Sen. Steve Peace, chair of the Senate Budget Committee, the increased revenue means that the state can fund schools at the same level as the national average within two years, without a tax increase.
"If we don't bring California up to the national average, the division between the haves and the have-nots will become greater," says Knapp. "Education is the glue of our society, and we need to make it strong. And there is a strong link between paying teachers a living wage and providing quality education for kids.
"Getting us up to the national average will definitely help increase teacher salaries," he adds. "But I think California should be even higher than the national average, because at that level, we're only 25th out of 50 states. Eventually it would be nice to be on top when it comes to supporting our kids."
Because teachers tend to see themselves as caretakers, they have been reluctant to go public with complaints about the salary structure. However, sentiment is growing among teachers that it is now time for society to take care of the caretakers, which is ultimately for the good of the children.
"I'm glad to see the issue of teacher salary finally being brought to public attention," says Ginger Frady, a fourth-year teacher at Rolling Hills Elementary School in Fullerton. "Traditionally, teachers have been helping, nurturing people. They may complain within safe circles, but they don't want to make waves. They tend to be more concerned about children than themselves."
Frady earns $34,000 a year and has a 14-month-old daughter. She says that without her husband's salary, they would be renters rather than homeowners. "He makes twice what I do, and without a college degree," says Frady, who is working on her master's.
"I think now is the time for teachers to speak up about salaries. It's time for us to be vocal. It's time for us to demand respect from the public. And most of all, it's time for a change."
