My understanding -- from well outside the business -- is that a large chunk of the problem is that there is a lot of seniority pay, tenure, and other factors that make it difficult to transfer to a different district. So the teacher/school contract isn't really an ordinary market where people circulate between jobs (and jobs circulate between people), forcing each job to pay more or less what it's worth to the teacher. Rather, if you teach for one year at a school, you're partly paid in that year and partly in a non-binding promise of getting better pay late in your career *there* when you've built up a couple of decades of seniority. But you lose the value of that promise if you go to another district.
I really like this take. I never conceptualized it this way, but that does make a lot of sense. You are correct that when you get hired inside a certain district, you are inside that taxpayer base pay structure and so any “newcomer“ would be considered a brand new hire, regardless of the position.
But I think that still is part of the problem: there is no way to incentivize hiring a better or newer teacher and all newbies are forced to climb a similar ladder or get knee capped. Unlike a company, where a skill could be transferred to another company, school districts don’t see teachers as transferring those new skills over even though they are the same skill set. This district contract is what control controls everything, which is silly. But maybe that’s how things have to be because of the way the schools are funded?
My “annual” contract is for 10 months so I’m not getting 8 weeks of paid vacation in the summer. Yes, my health insurance carries through the summer but salary, sick days, and personal days are based on 10 months. Admin and a small number of teachers on 12 month contracts have proportionally higher pay and additional benefits.
That said, I generally agree, I’m not underpaid. The entirely modest salary bumps are rough during higher inflation periods and the percent increases are well below normal inflation once a teacher is at the top of their salary guide, but those are known factors going in. These limitations can also be balanced by other factors depending upon the district including accumulating and selling of sick days. So again, I agree, well-negotiated contracts are plenty fair.
There is another challenge when it comes to switching teaching jobs - the loss of tenure. If tenured teachers could switch districts and have a shorter period to regain tenure in the new district then something resembling a genuine market for teaching experience and talent would likely follow.
Transferable tenure would help teachers to find more opportunities in a state. Given different state curriculums, if it were developed, I imagine it would be for teachers within a state. A good way to start out such a system might be with agreements between a few schools to allow tenure transfer. It would not only benefit teachers, it would be good for the participating schools. If a school finds themselves short one English teacher due to a sudden illness, having the tenure transfer system will help the school to be able to recruit an experienced, high-performing teacher from the "sister" school.
While increasing career mobility might seem like something administration wouldn't like (because you have increased risk of losing experienced staff), it's successful where I work (in federal government). It means unhappy workers can quickly switch departments (even moving to a different city or province) and managers can quickly bring in new staff who are experienced.
I was shocked when I first entered teacher college because my mentors told me to expect to work constantly. In the district I work in currently, most teachers would say work/life balance isn’t even considered. So of course the pressure can motivate people to consider other jobs, but what those jobs are is not well known or discussed.
The job is unpredictable, too, which also affects worker satisfaction, and not having options to switch roles leads to feeling trapped—a loss of agency, as you say in the article—but teachers do themselves no favors by focusing on how hard it is rather than possible solutions, which, in fairness, is not clear cut, but you have to explore any options.
Support workers (educational assistants), in particular, are working a demanding job which doesn’t pay enough, so I see a lot of them working their way up into teaching or other adjacent roles like counseling or administration. But that leaves the role in constant flux, when I think it’d be better to make the role more established as a full time job.
This conversation has been happening at the higher ed level, too. In some states, K-12 teachers actually get paid more in a lot of positions, definitely happens in NYC and here in California. I've known people working in K-12 who finished a PhD thinking they'd move to higher ed only to find out they'd have to take a big pay cut. I wrote a bit about recently. Glad to connect with another educator on here.
My understanding -- from well outside the business -- is that a large chunk of the problem is that there is a lot of seniority pay, tenure, and other factors that make it difficult to transfer to a different district. So the teacher/school contract isn't really an ordinary market where people circulate between jobs (and jobs circulate between people), forcing each job to pay more or less what it's worth to the teacher. Rather, if you teach for one year at a school, you're partly paid in that year and partly in a non-binding promise of getting better pay late in your career *there* when you've built up a couple of decades of seniority. But you lose the value of that promise if you go to another district.
Am I correct here?
I really like this take. I never conceptualized it this way, but that does make a lot of sense. You are correct that when you get hired inside a certain district, you are inside that taxpayer base pay structure and so any “newcomer“ would be considered a brand new hire, regardless of the position.
But I think that still is part of the problem: there is no way to incentivize hiring a better or newer teacher and all newbies are forced to climb a similar ladder or get knee capped. Unlike a company, where a skill could be transferred to another company, school districts don’t see teachers as transferring those new skills over even though they are the same skill set. This district contract is what control controls everything, which is silly. But maybe that’s how things have to be because of the way the schools are funded?
My “annual” contract is for 10 months so I’m not getting 8 weeks of paid vacation in the summer. Yes, my health insurance carries through the summer but salary, sick days, and personal days are based on 10 months. Admin and a small number of teachers on 12 month contracts have proportionally higher pay and additional benefits.
That said, I generally agree, I’m not underpaid. The entirely modest salary bumps are rough during higher inflation periods and the percent increases are well below normal inflation once a teacher is at the top of their salary guide, but those are known factors going in. These limitations can also be balanced by other factors depending upon the district including accumulating and selling of sick days. So again, I agree, well-negotiated contracts are plenty fair.
There is another challenge when it comes to switching teaching jobs - the loss of tenure. If tenured teachers could switch districts and have a shorter period to regain tenure in the new district then something resembling a genuine market for teaching experience and talent would likely follow.
Transferable tenure would help teachers to find more opportunities in a state. Given different state curriculums, if it were developed, I imagine it would be for teachers within a state. A good way to start out such a system might be with agreements between a few schools to allow tenure transfer. It would not only benefit teachers, it would be good for the participating schools. If a school finds themselves short one English teacher due to a sudden illness, having the tenure transfer system will help the school to be able to recruit an experienced, high-performing teacher from the "sister" school.
While increasing career mobility might seem like something administration wouldn't like (because you have increased risk of losing experienced staff), it's successful where I work (in federal government). It means unhappy workers can quickly switch departments (even moving to a different city or province) and managers can quickly bring in new staff who are experienced.
Great piece.
I was shocked when I first entered teacher college because my mentors told me to expect to work constantly. In the district I work in currently, most teachers would say work/life balance isn’t even considered. So of course the pressure can motivate people to consider other jobs, but what those jobs are is not well known or discussed.
The job is unpredictable, too, which also affects worker satisfaction, and not having options to switch roles leads to feeling trapped—a loss of agency, as you say in the article—but teachers do themselves no favors by focusing on how hard it is rather than possible solutions, which, in fairness, is not clear cut, but you have to explore any options.
Support workers (educational assistants), in particular, are working a demanding job which doesn’t pay enough, so I see a lot of them working their way up into teaching or other adjacent roles like counseling or administration. But that leaves the role in constant flux, when I think it’d be better to make the role more established as a full time job.
This conversation has been happening at the higher ed level, too. In some states, K-12 teachers actually get paid more in a lot of positions, definitely happens in NYC and here in California. I've known people working in K-12 who finished a PhD thinking they'd move to higher ed only to find out they'd have to take a big pay cut. I wrote a bit about recently. Glad to connect with another educator on here.
https://collegetowns.substack.com/p/ucla-professor-homeless-cant-afford
Fantastically framed - and written, of course.