Compared with workers in occupations that have similar education and skill requirements, public school teachers face a large and growing pay gap, according to a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

Over the last decade, the report shows, the teacher pay gap increased from 10.8 percent to 15.1 percent. That translates into weekly earnings that are about $154 lower than comparable workers'. (The report compares teachers to accountants, reporters, registered nurses, computer programmers, clergy and personnel officers.)

AFT executive vice president Antonia Cortese notes that this is just the latest study to confirm the same discouraging trend. "Teachers continue to be vastly underpaid compared with similar workers," she says in a prepared statement. "This makes recruitment and retention of the best and brightest increasingly difficult, even as the nation recognizes the growing need for high-quality teaching."

For female teachers and for those with more seniority, the gap is especially striking. In 1960, women teachers were better paid than other similarly educated workers-by about 14.7 percent. By 2000, the situation had reversed to the point where female teachers faced a 13.2 percent annual wage deficit. The pay gap for teachers who are early in their careers has grown only slightly in the past 10 years, the EPI says. For senior female teachers (in the 45-54 age group), the deficit grew 18 percent during that same period.

"Teachers are the single most important ingredient in educational success-and it's important for schools to compete for and keep the best qualified teachers, but this widespread and systemic devaluing of teaching sabotages those efforts," says Lawrence Mishel, one of the EPI researchers. "If you deliberately set out to design a plan to drive away your most experienced teachers, this would be a good way to do it."

One excuse for lower teacher pay has been the argument that teachers enjoy more generous health and pension benefits than many workers. The EPI analysis, however, should help put that myth to rest. When the took total compensation into account, including benefits, the pay gap decreased only slightly, from 15 percent to 12 percent. That's because benefits amount to only about 20 percent of total K-12 teacher compensation.

Teacher pay varies widely from state to state, so the pay gap also various according to where teachers live. In 15 states, the gap actually exceeds 25 percent. It is less than 10 percent in only five states, and in no state do teacher salaries equal or exceed those of comparable occupations, the report shows.

Given the widespread nature of the teacher pay gap, the only strategy that makes sense is to raise compensation across the board. "Policies that solely focus on changing the composition of the current composition levels," the authors write, "such as merit or pay-for-performance schemes, are unlikely to be effective unless they also correct the teacher compensation disadvantage in the labor market."

Says Cortese, "Salary growth for teachers must be on par with the salary growth in other professions. Unless they are part of a comprehensive plan to develop and support high-quality teaching, merit pay plans will produce the same dismal results that they have in the past."

The bottom line, Cortese adds, is that "teachers are the most important in-school influence on student achievement. We can't discuss recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers until we are ready to take a serious look at the very real financial penalty assessed to those who choose a career in the classroom."

The report, "The Teaching Penalty: Teacher Pay Losing Ground," is available online on the EPI Web site.

March 7, 2008