One of the more interesting results in the recent PDK poll was the strong support for paying teachers more. In addition to agreeing that teachers were overworked and undervalued, two-thirds of folks across the liberal-conservative spectrum thought that teachers were underpaid. It’s unsurprising that liberals (86%) thought teachers should be paid more—but 48% of conservatives agreed.
Because PDK is a real, actually scientific, poll with a long history, this is credible data. PDK even probes the question further, reminding participants (most of whom are not parents, by the way) that a raise in teacher pay has to come from somewhere:
There is a strong partisan aspect to views on raising teacher pay via higher property taxes, which provide a substantial portion of public school funding. Eighty-three percent of Democrats are in favor, declining to 67% of independents, and falling further to 48% of Republicans.
When you think of it, it’s pretty astonishing, a significant majority of the general citizenry agreeing that yeah, teachers really ought to make more money. Another factoid: back in 1981, only 29% of those polled by PDK felt that teachers were underpaid.
It’s tempting to think that folks have figured out just how essential schools and caring teachers are to a smoothly functioning society—perhaps the COVID shutdown engendered a new appreciation for the complexity of the work of teaching? Or have all the articles on the looming, alarming teacher shortage finally convinced people that the only way to fill those spots with qualified people is to pay teachers more?
Nah. Only half of the country (split right down partisan lines) believes the shortage of teachers is a serious problem—the other half doesn’t consider it a worrisome concern. Many in that second half—Republicans– want to put the focus on other issues, like controlling the curriculum and transgender bathrooms. Somehow, they seem to think, schools will always find ways to put warm bodies in classrooms.
Personally—as a person who has observed, up close, teacher pay trends for the last five decades–I think the poll reflects a nationwide, post-pandemic trend: Pay people what they deserve.
Everyone from the UPS driver who delivered your hand sanitizer, to the road construction crew sweating in this summer’s extreme heat, to the visiting nurses who manned COVID wards. Rising incomes are a real thing, especially among the segment of the population that has been scraping along. The fact that teachers fit into this group ought to be a national disgrace.
David Leonhardt, in the NY Times, discussing the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes:
The trend is a microcosm of larger developments. Nationwide, the pay of the bottom 90 percent of earners has trailed well behind economic growth in recent decades (as you can see in these Times charts). Most Americans have not received their share of the economy’s growing bounty, while a relatively small share have experienced very large income gains.
That’s not shocking. As the economist Thomas Piketty has explained, inequality tends to rise in a capitalist economy, partly because the wealthy have more political power and economic leverage than the middle class and poor do. But history also shows that rising inequality is not inevitable.
So teacher pay—like the BOTTOM 90 PERCENT, holy tamales—has trailed behind our burgeoning economic growth, while a small slice of wealthy people have capitalized (word chosen intentionally) on the way the United States economy has been shaped, since Laffer sketched his trickle-down theories on a napkin, and Reagan cut taxes on the rich.
Reminder: in 1981, at the start of the Reagan presidency, 71% of the population felt teachers were adequately paid.
There are other factors cross-cutting teacher pay, of course. Racism and sexism spring to mind, and the ever-present notion that teachers just love the kids and the work so much that they’re content with emotional satisfaction rather than a sufficient paycheck.
While we’re thinking about how much more we need to pay teachers— how about 20% raises, for starters, commensurate with what other college-educated professionals make —let’s also consider why we expect teachers to provide their own classroom supplies, or hustle them on donation sites? The average teacher spends $800 of her own money, annually, on furnishing and enhancing her classroom.
This summer, I have bought books for a half-dozen teachers I know, from their Amazon donation sites. And if $800 sounds high to you—consider the range of things that make classrooms welcoming, beginning with Kleenex and ending with a rocking chair. Most teachers I know buy snacks and band-aids, and while it might be embarrassing to put this on an Amazon list, sanitary supplies for girls.
It’s time for a major shift. Let’s pay teachers more. They’re worth it.
Teacher in a strange land 
I wish my school taxes would go up. I live in Florida.
The rules say I receive a homestead exemption. The first $25,000 of appraised value is not taxed for schools or anything else. (The third $25,000 is untaxed for everything else.) Any raise in my valuation is capped at 3% annually. So the home I bought seven years ago, which has appreciated 77% according to the housing websites can only be appraised at 23% more than I paid for it. (3% compounded)
However, it’s worse than that. The accumulated under-assessment from our previous residence carried forward. If you sell a $250,000 home assessed at $150,000 to buy a $400,000 home, the new home will immediately be assessed at $300,000.
The rules say that if property values go down 20% (looking at you, 2008), then the assessed value goes down 20%. When it goes up 10%, the assessed value can only go up 3%. You can see how that might be an issue in a place that has experienced yo-yo home values.
On top of that, the state tells the district how high the tax rate can be. Since I’m in a fast=growing district, the ad valorem goes down each year. (Because as we all know, while more houses means a bigger tax base for the district, it never means additional students.)
All this comes before our lapdog legislature enacts policies such as this one: Districts must share any new voter-approved construction dollars with charter schools on a per-pupil basis. Even if that charter did not exist at the time of the vote.
Teachers need more money? Yes.
Public schools need more money? Yes. Raising salaries only to place the teachers in un-air-conditioned trailers on campuses that are double their design capacity would be criminal. Of course, now they’re in the trailers and don’t have the raises either.
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Thanks for a thoughtful comment.
School finance is so complicated and varies so much, state to state, that it’s really difficult to write about it (which is why I included the fact that even PDK reminded folks that paying teachers more will probably result in a raise in property taxes, and they were still cool with it).
I was waiting for you to say “we need to scrap property tax as the chief source of school funding”– I’ve seen that claim many, many times. And I’m here to tell you that Michigan did precisely that, about 28 years ago, and the results were not so great. The state now provides a base funding amount for each student paid via sales tax (just raised, after years of hovering around 8K per student, to over 9K, with our new Democratic governor and Dem legislature— compare that to states like NJ), but there are all kinds of contingencies. Wealthy districts have always enjoyed a “held harmless” clause which lets them (but not poorer property tax districts) raise additional funds through various means. In my county, per-pupil revenues vary from the aforementioned $9.1K per student to over $33K per student, in two adjacent districts. Furthermore, this puts the revenue stream in the legislature’s hands–NEVER a good idea.
And the funding formulas (similar to the caps and contingencies you mention) are incredibly convoluted, and 100% politicized. Not to mention misunderstood.
Still– I am heartened to know that citizens understand that teachers are grossly underpaid. We can’t change anything about teacher pay until the public believes that.
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I recall during my thirty years in North Carolina, periodic polls where the majority said they would pay higher taxes targeted for education, yet this never happened. Many of the progressive causes from gun safety to higher taxes for the wealthy garner support in the 70s and above through polling data. However, when voters go to the polls, these issues have little sway over actual votes. Teachers never get significant raises because politicians are run by the oligarchy that is too concerned with their tax breaks and government subsidies. The issues that are typically raised during elections are anathema to the actual subterfuge that keeps meaningful change from happening. Too many in the electorate cannot see that the profound inequalities we face in regard to economic prosperity are a direct result of not seeing the grifting forest for the needy trees.
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Politicians are run by the oligarchy–there’s the nugget in your comment.
I used to avoid making what I thought were over the top statements– We’re losing our democracy! We’re turning into an oligarchy! — but lately, it’s become apparent that we’re in deep distress in this country. You’re right that the will of the people (on dozens of issues, from paying teachers to who should have the right to control their own health decisions) has been subverted by politicians. If you live in NC, this ought to be glaringly obvious.
It does seem to me that this could be turned around. I know I sound like Pollyanna, but occasionally, something happens that proves we’re not held captive by political forces. In Michigan, we passed an anti-gerrymandering bill in 2018. It was contentious and took time to re-organize, but it gave us a balanced legislature—in a state that’s always been purple–for the first time in decades. NC could do that, too. It’s hard work and unfair that we have to undo that subterfuge, but it’s the only hope, I think.
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I agree. We have to find a way to overcome what I have started to call privatized socialism where the means of production is controlled by a few who see themselves as a government. Trump is not even the tip of the iceberg. He is the face of a powerful malfeasance that has actors, from Elon Musk to Charles Koch to Leonard Leo, who not only want to keep their money but take everyone else’s. They not only control more money than Trump, but they allow him to lead interference while they use vast amounts of dark money to pull the levers of power. The current slate of Republican candidates for President are completely beholden to these forces. The last thirty years of the standards movement in public education have been a direct result of this activity. There are many who write of this on Diane’s blog. I no longer live n North Carolina, but have close ties there. Since 2010 it has been the laboratory for gerrymandering through a corrupt alliance of private and public interests. I was living in Alabama when Trump was elected and the common refrain among Democrats there became welcome to Alabama as we watched the way Republicans started to wield their power in Washington. There has to be a concerted effort to counter the current challenges to democracy. I would like to get involved in the work. I don’t have the resources, but I have the will.
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