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Colorado Teachers Have the Largest Pay Disparity in the Country- 9 News

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Colorado Teachers Have the Largest Pay Disparity in the Country- 9 News

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This is a news article written by Marshall Zelinger, an investigative reporter. This article was published on 9 News, a local news station in Colorado. This add a local perspective to my knowledge, giving me information about my issue locally.

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Colorado teachers have the largest pay disparity in the country

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A report by the Economic Policy Institute published a report highlighting pay disparity between teachers and college-educated nonteachers. Colorado was the worst.

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This is an excerpt from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, an education journal written in 2003 by Linda C. Morice, a professor of Educational Leadership in Illinois, and James E. Murray, a retired state senator. It can give perspective on the progress of my topic.

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Compensation and Teacher Retention_ A Success Story_

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Written in the periodical, District Administration, by Fran Silverman. This gives some of the opposing viewpoints as well as provides calculations and numbers of teacher salaries compared to that of careers with similar education levels.

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Teachers Are Quitting. Some States Want to Pay More to Keep Them.

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Teachers Are Quitting. Some States Want to Pay More to Keep Them.-WSJ

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Teachers Are Quitting. Some States Want to Pay More to Keep Them.-WSJ

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This is a news article published on the Wall Street Journal Website, written by Matt Barnum a reporter specializing in K-12 Education. This can help give me a more recent perspective on my issue as well as giving insight into current policy deliberations.

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"Poor for the Rest of Your Life"-Negative Messages Can Deter Prospective Teachers Downbeat messages—especially from the media can make would-be teachers think twice about a career

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Published in the academic journal, education weekly. This article is from May 2023, written by Madeline Will. This article gives great insight into how the portrayal of teacher wages discourages new educators from the profession.

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Teachers are burned out. Here's why there's no quick fix

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Teachers are burned out. Here's why there's no quick fix

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This is a new article published by PBS. Written by Nicole Ellis and Casey Kahn. This article will give a very good insight into the current teacher retention problem, as well as give context to my divisive topic.

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New teacher salaries rose by more than they had in a decade during the 2021-2022 school year, according to a recent report by the National Education Association (NEA). But while the 2.5 percent increase is significant, average overall teacher salaries have struggled to keep up, especially with inflation, NEA President Becky Pringle said.

"Overall, over these last 10 years, salaries have actually declined," she said.

Pay is one of the leading reasons teachers have said they are leaving the profession, according to a 2022 NEA survey, which found that nearly 55 percent of teachers were considering leaving the profession earlier than they'd planned. Pandemic-related stress and burnout were also factors.

Pringle says the compounding effects of a "lack of professional pay, lack of respect, lack of time, and lack of resources," has made it hard to keep teachers and disincentivizes college graduates from pursuing careers in education to begin with.

"Shortages are a massive problem on the national scale," said Desiree Carver-Thomas, a researcher at the Learning Policy Institute, adding, "we see shortages in almost every state when it comes to math, science and special education."
PBS NewsHour digital anchor Nicole Ellis spoke with education experts across the country on challenges with teacher pay and what it means for retention. Watch the video in the player above.
Administrators have also been feeling the pressure to recruit and retain teachers. Michelle Reid, the superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools in Northern Virginia, oversees more than 13,000 teachers in one of the largest school systems in the country. "Many of our teachers currently actually take a second job to support their families, and that's, I think, a real challenge for our staff," Reid said.

Teacher resignations in Fairfax jumped 45 percent last year compared to average resignation rates from 2018 to 2020, according to a Washington Post analysis. Reid says the shortages forced Fairfax County to change its hiring approach in many ways, including pivoting from seasonal recruiting to year-round recruiting.

"We're constantly in a recruitment format and we're really starting to look at nontraditional candidates because we know there are not enough traditional graduates coming out of education programs," Reid said, "so we're also being asked to look at career switchers."

But as school administrations pivot to prioritizing staffing up with new teachers, Carver-Thomas said, retaining educators is also critical because high teacher turnover makes it difficult to create a stable school environment, which "has a detrimental impact on student achievement."

"Excellent recruitment really supports retaining teachers over time," she said, because "one of the strongest predictors of whether or not a teacher will remain in their classroom is how supportive they find their school leaders."

The NEA report on pay also showed that 40 percent of education support professionals (ESP) nationwide - like interventionists or special education aides - make less than $25,000 a year.

"We know those are poverty wages. We know they can't raise a family on that amount of money," Pringle said.

It's an issue Reid sees in her own district in Northern Virginia, where she said those ESPs do critical one-on-one work with students.

"I do believe that those salaries have lagged here in Virginia and in particular here in Fairfax County. And it's going to be one of those things we're going to have to work to catch up [on] because we really value our instructional assistance," Reid said.

Pay equality across the landscape is essential, Carver-Thomas said.

"When one state raises salaries or one district raises salaries it can actually exacerbate inequalities because then you have teachers moving from schools in one state to another state," she said.

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Teachers are burned out. Here's why there's no quick fix

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New teacher salaries rose by more than they had in a decade during the 2021-2022 school year, according to a recent report by the National Education Association (NEA). But while the 2.5 percent increase is significant, average overall teacher salaries have struggled to keep up, especially with inflation, NEA President Becky Pringle said.

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Who are the stakeholders in this problem?

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Who are the stakeholders in this problem?

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The biggest stakeholders in this problem are most obviously, teachers, but it's stakeholders go deeper than just that. Education is a major pillar of our society and as educators increasingly leave the profession for more highly paid jobs, students, parents, and communities are effected as a result.

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Who can do something about this problem, and what can they do?

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Who can do something about this problem, and what can they do?

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Something we can do to help this problem is increase the demand for higher pay from society members other than teachers. Taxpayer money is a major part of the way teachers are paid and as a result, taxpayer demands are the most likely to help solve this issue. This issue has a long history and thus the solution will not be quick or clean, but every step towards betterment is a major improvement.

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What are the constraints and affordances around this problem?

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What are the constraints and affordances around this problem?

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The constraints of this are that taxpayers never want to pay more money. This issue has also become increasingly political, making progress in policy much harder. Affordances around this problem are that most people are aware of this issue and thus know much about the issue but lack the in-depth knowledge required to create change and progress.

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Many school district tax measures on November ballot would pay for teacher salaries

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Many school district tax measures on November ballot would pay for teacher salaries

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This is an article posted on a website dedicated to educational reporting in Colorado. This article was written by Yesnia Robles, a reporter who specializes on education and has previous experience in Colorado News at the Denver Post. This article can help me understand the kind of tax proposal that are are on the ballot.

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Some Colorado school districts are asking voters to approve tax measures to fund teacher salaries

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School district leaders say raising staff salaries is urgently needed. They’re asking voters this election to approve tax measures to do just that.