Is it time to reverse engineer the incentive structures in education?
Is it time to reverse engineer the incentive structures in education?
If you’re a teacher after about year two you start to notice a rather annoying and yet all encompassing issue. The salary and pay incentive structures in schools are completely backwards, or rather maybe upside down! I consider this to be the issue in a nutshell: If you want to make “real” money in education, you have to leave the classroom - but that’s the job you’ve actually sought.?
The issue is if you are an excellent teacher, you are incentivized to leave your classroom in order to pursue that level of salary.?
What am I talking about??
The Problem: Simply put a teacher will never make as much as an administrator, at least without taking on many “side hustles” or otherwise stipended positions beyond their regular teaching duties. In point of fact, when you get into the nitty gritty of the situation, the disparity in pay is incredible and all but insurmountable, even with maximizing the “stipends, extra duties, coaching”, and a side hustle (or two).
For example: In HISD a first year teacher is going to make roughly $61,500 (for a 10 month contract) up to $74655 (for a 12 month teaching contract). At 10 years of experience that same teacher’s pay rise scale will increase to $67,500 - $81,969, which is roughly a $7,000 “step up” over a decade of working, ProD and re-certifications.?
In comparison a 1st year Assistant Principal will start at $75,000 at an Elementary School to $85,000? at the High School level for a 10 month employee. As a 12 month employee you are starting at $82,246 (Elementary Vice Principal) ranging up to $93,213 (High School Vice Principal).
Total Compensation: When we look at the Principal/Head Administrator level, these salaries start at $108,500 (ES) to $139,000 (“Comprehensive” High School). In addition, there are incentives for Doctorate Degrees at $1000 per year (a Masters is required for administration certification) and per year increases that range from $1,000 (years 1-3) to $5,000 (16+ years), as well as “complexity factor” salary increases. Complexity factors are based on the needs and concerns of the school’s population which seems to be based on reading, grade level concerns, neuro-divergent and special education populations. These “complexity factor” pay rises range from $0-$7,000. This means that a Comprehensive High School Principal at 10 years experience would be paid roughly $169,000 +/-. That is a whole different level of salary from $67,500 for the same 10 years of work.
The Disparity Continues:?
Even if you were a teacher with 40 years experience the absolute highest salary you can get (as a 12 month employee) is $106,217! That is without stipends, extra duties or running clubs which all add to your teaching schedule, and add to your time away from your family.?
In order to have a completely fair comparison, I decided to look at a suburban pay structure of a random town in the United States: Gary Indiana, home of the Jackson5 and of course the subject of “The Music Man”.
Gary Indiana starts their teachers at $40,500 and while they do offer increases, per their collective bargaining Agency, they set their increases through an experience and evaluation (meritorious) calculation.
Evaluation for Meritorious Compensation is 4.3% of the teacher’s (current) base salary. This is earned if the teacher has achieved the level of “highly effective” or “effective” teacher in their evaluative process.?
Experience becomes 1% of the teacher’s pay rise, based on the teacher’s return the following year. It should be pointed out that 1st and 2nd year teacher’s are not eligible for the yearly pay rises. Additionally, it should be pointed out the school district caps your base salary at $75,085. In addition, there is an addendum of the Collective Bargaining Agreement that states any teacher earning the moniker of “Ineffective” or “Needs Improvement” receives no meritorious pay rise, but I can not conclusively prove that the same “ineffective” or “needs improvement” teacher does not receive the 1% yearly pay rise for experience.?
Additionally, it must be noted that after reaching the “Base Salary” cap of $75,058, you receive a “stipend” of $275 (minus any appropriate withholdings and deductions). Thus, the highest “Base Salary” would be $75,333.?
At the 5.3% (top) yearly pay increases, starting at $40,800, a teacher would potentially top out in their personal base salary in +/- 10-11 years!?
Gary is quite typical of other suburban(ish) school systems around the country: There are ways to increase your “base” though they are a little convoluted through stipends and incentives, which is really added to the aforementioned duties, classes, and thus more time spent at work.?
Here’s an example: Let’s say you are the Music Teacher with 12 years experience, therefore you are actually on the “10th step”, and thus your base is roughly $75,000. You take on the Choral Director role, advise the Student Council, become the Drama Director, and are a Class/Grade Level Advisor. Here’s how this affects your “Base Salary”:
Base Salary: $75,333.00
Choral Director: $ 2,853.87
Student Council: $ 1,442.71
Drama Director: $ 2,385.66
Class Advisor: $ ? 721.42
Total Pay: $82,736.66
Well that seems like a “more than fair salary” for “just being a teacher”, right?
More Time:
This is not the time to get into the “just a teacher” debate, instead it is a discussion on “Time” and valuation.?
What you might miss is what this means to the teacher, and their family, and their home and life balance. Teaching requires a lot of prep, all teaching does. As a Music educator myself, I can assure you that you are not only prepping for your students in the class, you are also prepping yourself (practicing music, maintaining your expertise in performance), while also practicing the conducting, and making sure that the students remain organized. Therefore your planning periods are gold!?
As such, if you are an advisory teacher, you are going to give up one of your planning periods daily for your advisory class. As those students age through the years, their advisory needs go from: Exams and State Assessment issues, to college applications, SAT testing, ACT testing, and practice interviews for college admittance.?
Even More Time:
Additionally, if you are the Student Council leader, you are again giving up another class period for planning and meeting with the Student Council (or after school/lunch periods), as well as planning events that the Student Council sponsors. And, of course, attending all of their events.
EVEN MORE TIME:?
As a Drama Director, those auditions, rehearsals, and performances are usually after school, evenings and weekends. Having served in this capacity many times, I have personally spent between 150-300 extra hours during a single performance event, between auditions, rehearsals, tech rehearsals and performance. This is when I was just the Director (as opposed to having other roles such as Tech Director and Producer, Set Designer or Choreographer). As well, the Choral Director designation means after school rehearsals, and events, as well as preparation for UIL and State competitions, concerts and events.?
So now calculate the difference between Base Salary hours and the actual hours worked to earn the “increased and stipended position (not including the “off campus” work at homes and on weekends.?
Teacher: 40 hours per week x 36 weeks of school: 1440 hours
Drama Director (1 Season) 2.5 hours per day for 12 weeks + 3 weekends of rehearsal (6 hours each) + 4 performances @ 5 hours (2 before, 2 for performance, & 1 cleanup): +/- 188 hours
Choral Director: (2 Seasons (Fall and Spring): 2.5 hours for rehearsal 2-3x per week x 24 weeks. Travel to at least Solo and Ensemble (12 hour x2), UIL 6 days (12 x 6), State MENC competition (2 @ 12 hours): 270 hours
Class Advisor: 1 class period per week + 1 event per month (2.5 hours each): 61
Student Council: 1 class per week (36) + 3-4 dances per year (6 hours each) + Pep Rallies (3x3) + other events (rounded up to 18 hours): 84 hours
Additional hours worked: 603 or 42% of another school year for a teacher (1440 vs 2043). This clearly doesn’t account for any time spent at home “working” or correcting papers or creation of lessons. Bear in mind that the teacher is working 40% more hours for about 10% more pay.
Let’s again look at the salary of the “average” principal in Gary Indiana. According to salary.com the pay range for the “average high school” principal is $103,746 - $132,124, making the “average” salary $117,686 per year. The contract for a principal is considered a 11 month contract 2 weeks before and after the teacher contracts begin and end. Thus the Principal is responsible for 1600 hours of work. Of course, we all know that Principals will attend many events throughout the year (concerts, games and events), so let’s add 200 hours to this total: 1800 hours to earn an average of $117,686!?
To take this down the next level, this would make the pay rate difference:?
Teacher Per hour (Base): $52.08 per hour
Teacher per Hour: (Stipended): $40.83 (a net loss in dollars per hour)
Principal per hour (extended hours): $65.38 (based on average)
Now this is not a “wah” session on how teachers are paid too little, rather this is a greater conversation on the idea of “reverse incentive” in salary programming. The issue I am raising is that in order to make “good money” or really a true professional salary, a good or great teacher must leave the classroom and enter administration.?
It is often said that “No one gets into Education for the money” which is vaguely true. Or rather, it is unfortunately true.? See this line is said with a “wink and a nod” to basically acknowledge that teachers are either underpaid or are not highly valued.?
But there is in fact a way for those in education to make “real money” but it is through becoming an administrator and leaving the classroom.
The Value of a Teacher vs Administrators:
Now I am sure some are thinking “well administrators are paid more because they work through the summer”. Or, Admin are paid more because they have a better or more education and far more experience than a “basic teacher”.?
That’s a great idea!?
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But also, false!
Anecdote is absent from Data, however, here in Texas, most teachers receive their Master’s at some point in their career, and because recertification requires some 150 CPE hours every 5 years, it is usually in that first 5 years that the teacher receives their Graduate degree. In addition, many school districts now require a Graduate degree in education to retain either your position, or your certification. However, by data analysis more than 50% of all teachers receive their Graduate Degree prior to entering the workforce, thus many actually end up earning their doctorate degrees. Administrators, by contrast, must hold a Masters, which is usually a Masters of Science in Educational Leadership, and pass an exam. Thus the education is the same, Graduate Degrees, at minimum.?
Experience: Let’s look at administration from an experience standpoint: In Houston Texas, the minimum number of years you must teach prior to becoming an Administrator (usually Vice Principal first) is 2 years. Because of the shortage of teachers and administration, Houston actually will allow you to have served a single year as a teacher, and be in the first year of your Principal training program (Section 4a) throughout that second year. With all the “alternative” pathways to certification this means you can be transitioning into your mentorship and practicum as a principal during the 2nd semester of your 2nd year in education!
After checking with the Indiana Department of Education the same is true for Gary Indiana.
In fact, by data, both self-reported and aggregated, the average teacher spends between 2 and 5 years in the classroom prior to the jump to Administration. The outliers are the districts that have no classroom teaching requirement prior to administration (Maine) and those that require 5 years. The longest required term as a teacher that I found was 5 years. This brings the average to a swift 4 years in the classroom, with 1 being a transition year, so really you are more at 2-2.5 years.?
This is something of a “hot button” issue where many teachers become either disillusioned or disheartened by the fact that they are being both evaluated by, and sometimes “mentored” by a person who has served far less time in the classroom than the evaluated teacher. In addition, teacher’s who are from the “non-core” subjects, specifically PE and Sports coaches are far and away the main demographic of former teachers who become administrators in many states (seemingly southern and mid-western states)
Thus far, this has all been from the Public School standpoint, and as such I decided to look into the incentive differentials in the Private School industry. Specifically, I was looking for evidence that teachers are not being incentivised to leave the classroom in order to join administration to be paid in the Upper Middle Class salary ranges. As defined by Yahoo Finance, this Salary Designation is typically seen as being above $100,000 and below $250,000 (Upper Class or Wealthy) for a family of 4.
Conclusion: Evidence demonstrates that there are few incentives for teachers to remain in the classroom and forgo administration in both the Public and Private School systems. The reason is that all the top salaries are all in Administration, and in both instances the disparity between the Administration and Classroom Teacher is enormous!?
Just how large are those incentives??
In a word: Huge!
The Private School Sector: In researching this article, I looked at the salaries of teaching staff versus Administration of several major Private academies around the country. Specifically I looked at schools that were ranked by Niche.com between #2 and #10 in the states of: Texas (Houston), Florida, Michigan, Connecticut, California, Idaho, Michigan, Washington State and Washington DC. In other words I was specifically searching for schools in the major regions of the United States: The Northeast, The Mid Atlantic, The South West, The South, Mid-west and the North, as well as, in both major cities and smaller rural towns.?
Findings: What I found was indescribable, and really quite disturbing. Each of these schools had Heads of Schools that made significantly more than that of their counterparts in Public School (ie: Superintendents), along with other Administrative Staff that did similarly. Overall the average school size was +/- 550 students K-12, which is far less than most School Districts throughout the US.? On average superintendents monitor the education of multiple thousands of students, with the smallest (average) being Montana with 354 students per district, and Florida with 49,656 on average in their district. The outliers are Hawaii, as a single statewide district, there are 186,000 students, and Boise Pine-Ryder school district with 10!. The US average salary for a superintendent is roughly $144,000, but there are those in large ISD’s that make up to $400,000-$600,000.?
In contrast: each of the Head of Schools at the researched private schools made more than this average amount, along with incentives and additional monetary increases.?
After looking through a number of 990’s (publicly available information) I chose to look at those people who had their salaries reported on the 990, generally the top earners in the school. In order to be “equitable” I looked at the highest paid staff member, the middle paid person (literally if 5 were reported, I looked at the person 2 down from the highest paid), and then the last person reported (the lowest of the highest paid).? These numbers below represent the average of the reported highest earners from all 9 schools. I am not distributing the names of the schools. Typically the Highest Top Earner was a “Head of School”, the Middle Top Earners were either the Head of Advancement/Development of a Division Head, and the Lowest Top earner was either a Division Director or Executive Secretary.??
These then are those averages:
Highest Paid Top Earner (Head of School) $629,988.62
Middle Paid? Top Earner (typically Head of Advancement or Division Director): $187,384.44
Lowest Paid Top Earner (Division Director OR executive Secretary) $141,838.33
Only 1 school featured a faculty member on their 990 in any capacity, meaning that all other schools paid all other faculty less than their lowest 990 reported income. That one school listed a faculty member at $132,000 with no incentive beyond, making them the 4th lowest paid in the 990 report. However, that specific school’s Head of School was paid $961,001.33, the highest I’ve ever seen that was not a University.?
Now the Teachers: Because the schools do need to disclose the pay of their teachers, and as noted, only one actually reported a faculty member on their 990, I needed to get creative to find the “Average Salary” of a teacher in each region looked at:
Here are those averages
Washington, D.C.: $55,255
Houston, TX: $50,500
Washington State: $62,156
Florida: $48,500
Michigan: $44,300
Idaho: $45,200
California: $74,500 (an outlier due to the difference between rural and city living)
Connecticut: $67,333
This would make the average salary of a private school teacher, specifically in the researched areas, about $55,968.00 this is roughly 38% or little more than 1/3rd of the average of the lowest reported (via 990) salary of an administrator in the same areas and zones throughout the researched schools.?
So I will once again ask:?
Where is the incentive for an excellent teacher to remain in the classroom, when you are likely to double or even triple your salary as an administrator??
What should be done to change this “Reverse Incentive Program”?
?Is it time to “Reserve Engineer” this issue?
Sources:
HISD: Employee Pay Scale and Contract 2022-23
HISD: Compensation Manual 2022-23 (page 28)
Gary, IN: Employee Compensation Manual 2022-23
Gary Indiana Collective Bargaining Agency
National Center for Educational Statistics/NCES.gov.us
TEA - Administration Licensing and Certifications
Indiana Department of Education - Certification and Administration
Education Week: 02/15/2015, Peter Dewit
Yahoo Finance, US News and Reports: 07/13/2023
Governing.com: School Districts averages in US, May 2016