U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan ~ Photo by Ralph Alswang

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
Photo past Ralph Alswang

(EdSource) – Secretary of Teaching Arne Duncan'south call for a dramatic boost in teacher salaries comes at a time when many teachers in California are experiencing lower bounty equally a outcome of  cuts in schoolhouse funding.

"We should proceed our best teachers in the classroom—and they should be earning a lot more than coin—every bit much as $150,000 a year," he declared in a passionate speech to the National Lath for Professional person Instruction Standards. And starting teachers, he said, should earn $lx,000.

On i level, Duncan'southward plea tin can be seen as a commendable use of his considerable bully pulpit to describe attention to the macerated professional condition of teachers, and to try to attract the best and the brightest to the profession.

On another level, what he proposed is far removed from what is happening on the basis in school districts in California and well-nigh everywhere else in the nation. Over the past decade California has systematically eliminated a range of programs intended to reward some of its highest-performing teachers. More recently, in many districts teachers'  salaries have been reduced equally a result of unpaid furlough days, cuts in benefits, and other cost cutting moves.

"Also oftentimes the heartbreaking reality is that a good teacher with a decade of classroom experience is difficult-pressed to raise a family on a teacher's salary," said Duncan. "That must alter."

But how?

Teacher salaries in California are already virtually the highest in the land—but however far beneath the levels Duncan pitched to his enthusiastic audience.

In 2008–09, with an average salary of $66,995, California ranked third behind New York with an average teacher salary of $69,118. Nationally, the average is $54,319, with many states far below that figure.

Teachers with Ph.Ds and decades of service don't crack the six-figure ceiling, fifty-fifty in districts like Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified with powerful unions negotiating for them. The $150,000 summit salary envisaged past Duncan is closer to the $158,622 that the boilerplate school superintendent makes in California. Starting teachers in San Diego last year made $38,347, and in Los Angeles $45,637, far below Duncan'south hoped for initial bacon of $lx,000.

"Allow's face up it," Duncan said. "A phenomenal instructor educating underserved kids in scientific discipline, technology, math, engineering science, or the arts should be very well compensated, simply as they are in whatever other profession. A kindergarten instructor who can turn every child into a reader is priceless."

But in abiding dollars teachers' salaries nationally are more or less stuck at the same level they were ii decades ago.

Average Classroom Teacher Salary, 1991-2011

Source: National Education Association (NEA), Rankings and Estimates, 2011.

Over the years, California has experimented with programs to heave compensation for outstanding pedagogy. But those programs have fallen victim to multiple upkeep crises throughout the by decade.

The best known was the 1999 Certificated Staff Incentive Plan which awarded $100 million in teacher bonuses of upwardly to $25,000 each for teachers in underperforming schools whose pupil performance improved beyond minimum growth targets. Simply it was abandoned after just one round of bonuses were awarded, even though it is still enshrined in land police force (see California Education Lawmaking Section 44650). The Governor's Performance Awards and other like programs were also phased out without result in whatever permanent increase in teachers' basic bacon levels.

Concluding twelvemonth, in response to withal another budget crisis, the state began phasing out its honor of $5,000 a year for four years to teachers who earn National Lath certification. A decade before information technology had eliminated the one-fourth dimension bonus of $10,000 paid to teachers but for getting the certification.

And just days earlier Duncan gave his voice communication, New York City schools announced that they had abased a instructor bonus program that had cost the district $56 million over 3 years. Even when it was in place, the program yielded teachers a mere $3,000—a fraction of the far more generous compensation that Duncan has in mind.

Instead of bacon increases, generally instructor compensation is being reduced through methods such as mandatory furlough days, higher co-pays or deductions for wellness benefits, a freeze on price-of-living allowances, and so on.

"We must remake the education profession itself," said Duncan. "We must retrieve large. Our children, our parents, our teachers, and our country deserve amend."

All true.

Just if college compensation is to be part of the film, it cannot happen without a serious conversation about policies—regime or otherwise—and funding sources that could pb to bodily changes in the schools, including how teachers are paid.

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Desire to detect out how teachers in your school commune are paid? Check out the Ed-Data website and this Sacramento Bee data base.

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