Are Morgan Hill Teachers Actually OVERpaid?
While eating lunch downtown the other day I was partaking in one of my favorite activities: eavesdropping. It’s amazing what you can learn by listening to the other conversations around you in a public place. I feel it’s also a great way to keep an ear on what topics my neighbors are actually interested in.
With school starting again later this month it was no surprise that one of the topics of conversation was the traditional moaning and gnashing of teeth over “how poorly” our teachers are paid. I’ve long felt the underpaid teacher to be a mythical creature whose existence is only accepted due to the excellent propaganda machine of the NEA and teachers’ unions, but I thought maybe it was time I investigated myself. Which I now have…
The Disclaimers-
- This article is focused on teachers in government schools, not private schools.
- Although all numbers (unless stated otherwise) deal with teachers in the Morgan Hill Unified School District, a quick spot check of several other California counties showed similar results across the board.
- Throughout this article I refer to teachers as women rather than men. I do this not because I’m a sexist pig, but because every school I’ve visited over the last 30 years has had a significant majority of the teaching staff comprised of women.
- Unfortunately I had to return to 1999-2000 to get numbers for comparison. However, teacher salaries have increased at a rate slightly higher than inflation since then, so the numbers should still hold. If anyone knows where I can get documented salary stats for a more recent year I’ll be more than happy to revisit this topic.
The Basics-
- Lowest Teacher Salary Offered1 - $33,360
- Highest Teacher Salary Offered1 - $60,499
- Average Teacher Salary Paid1 - $50,757
- Median Income (Single Female)2 - $45,354
- Mean Income (Single Female)2 -$54,012
- Median Household Income2 - $81,958
- Mean Household Income2 - $101,868
- Female Population Making <$50,000/year2 - 58%
Based on these numbers it appears that the average school teacher tends to fall right in line with the average non-teacher in Morgan Hill. Is this really so bad? But that’s only the start of the story.
Apples To Apples-
Teachers had 184 work days in 1999-20001, while the average worker had 250 (5 days/week, 50 weeks/year), which means teachers worked 26% less than the average worker. So it seems only fair to add another 26% to the average teacher salary when making comparisons, does it not? This brings the average teacher salary in Morgan Hill to $63,954. This is higher than 63% of the single females in Morgan Hill earned that year2. Not bad at all. And that’s still not the end of the story.
Retirement Benefits-
The thing that most people tend to forget about teacher compensation (in government schools) is the excellent retirement benefit. How many private sector jobs even have a retirement fund anymore? I know I’ve never had one. I’m not talking abouta 401c, IRA, or similar self-funded retirement plan. I’m talking about a full pension. Teacher pensions are handled by CalSTRS (California State Teachers’ Retirement System) which brags that it is the “Largest U.S. teachers’ retirement fund” and the “Second largest U.S. public pension fund”3 Teachers can retire as early as age 50 with at least 30 years of service credit, or at age 55 with at least five years of service credit.
The methods for calculating retirement benefits are far too complicated to repeat here, but can be seen at the CalSTRS website. Instead, let’s take a current average teacher and see what her lifetime retirement benefits will be by using the handy calculator provided by CalSTRS4. Our average teacher above had been teaching for 17 years1, so we’ll use her as an example.
Assuming she started teaching at 21 she would have been born in 1957, and thus would be of minimum retirement age in 2012 at age 51 with 30 years of service, 1 year of Other Service Credit, 14 unused sick days, 184 contract base service days, 2 Year Service Credit Incentive, a final salary of $79,907 (the current highest salary offered in Morgan Hill), and no beneficiary. Her estimated unmodified monthly benefit will be $3524.01, making an annual salary of $42,288 or, roughly, 53% of her final salary. Not to mention that at 51 she’s still quite able to work and this won’t effect her pension at all as long as she doesn’t work for a California government school.
Compare this to the standard Social Security benefit for the same woman working in the private sector - $1,357/month or $16,284/year (according to the Social Security Administration6). And in the private sector she wouldn’t be able to start collecting until age 62, more than a decade later.
Given a standard life expectancy our teacher should live to be 835, so will be collecting her pension for 32 years. That’s two years longer than she actually worked as a teacher. Therefore it seems reasonable to add her annual pension to her annual average salary (adjusted for year-round employment) and compare that to the median salary in Morgan Hill with theirSocial Security benefit added on. Doing so gives us the following numbers-
- Average Teacher Salary Paid - $106,242
- Median Income (Single Female) - $61,638
That tells us that the average government school teacher is earning 42% more than the average woman in Morgan Hill. Do you still think they’re “woefully underpaid”? Well, a 2007 report from the Manhattan Institute For Policy Research7 (based on data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in its annual National Compensation Survey) agrees with me-
- The average public school teacher was paid 36% more per hour than the average non-sales white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty and technical worker.
- Full-time public school teachers work on average 36.5 hours per week during weeks that they are working. By comparison, white-collar workers (excluding sales) work 39.4 hours, and professional specialty and technical workers work 39.0 hours per week. Private school teachers work 38.3 hours per week.
- Compared with public school teachers, editors and reporters earn 24% less; architects, 11% less; psychologists, 9% less; chemists, 5% less; mechanical engineers, 6% less; and economists, 1% less.
- Compared with public school teachers, airplane pilots earn 186% more; physicians, 80% more; lawyers, 49% more; nuclear engineers, 17% more; actuaries, 9% more; and physicists, 3% more.
- Public school teachers are paid 61% more per hour than private school teachers, on average nationwide.
- We find no evidence that average teacher pay relative to that of other white-collar or professional specialty workers is related to high school graduation rates in the metropolitan area.
Data Sources-
- Teacher Salary Report (J-90) filed by school districts
- Census 2000 Summary File for Morgan Hill, CA
- CalSTRS at a Glance
- CalSTRS Retirement Benefits Calculator
- National Vital Statistics Report, April 19, 2006 (pg. 3) [PDFfile]
- Social Security Benefits Calculator
- How Much Are Public School Teachers Paid? by Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. Winters
Back To School…
And back to the subject of motivating teachers who are barely making over minimum wage, when our children’s futures are in their hands. Is it any wonder that there are so many complaints against schools in the lower income districts, when one doesn’t…
[…] recent post titled Are Morgan Hill Teachers Actually OVERpaid? has elicited surprisingly little response thus far. I expected an outporing of comments, posts […]
While you have that teachers work 183 days, what you don’t include is how many hours beyond our contractual duty day many teachers work. For instance, during the school year, I typically work 2 hours beyond my duty day every week day. On the week-ends, Sunday afternoon is devoted to lesson planning, typically 3 to 4 hours. At no time can I request over-time because it’s the expectation that as a teacher I will do this. You also do not take into account the amount of money teachers pour back into their own classrooms every single year to ensure that their students have the supplies they need. While some of this can be written off in taxes, it is just a small fraction of how much of our own money we spend on our students.
Next, what you may not know about retirement, is that teachers like me who went into teaching later in life and had other jobs prior to teaching, I will not qualify for any of my social security benefits. This is due to the social security offset. This also means that my husband’s social security benefits will only be given to me at a small fraction of what I would get had I stayed in the private sector.
Finally, teachers in my district will top out on the salary schedule after 20 years at $70,000. Compare that to what our administrators make in my district (and other districts) and there’s no comparison. Many administrators make well into the six figures, not counting their benefits package.
ms_teachers last blog post..It’s Time for a Carnival
Welcome, Ms. Teacher and thanks for commenting!
I also neglected to mention that the typical teacher’s workday is scheduled for less than 8 hours, 5-6 hours including lunch in your case (Vallejo elementary schools are in session from 9:00-2:00/3:25; middle school 7:50-12:45/2:15; high school 7:50-2 or 3 o’clock (roughly)), so the extra 1-2 hours/day still doesn’t bring you up to a 40 hour work week, and giving you 4 hours per Sunday during the school year adds a mere 164 hours or 21 days to your work year. In case you were unaware, most salaried employees don’t make overtime regardless of the number of hours worked, regardless of industry.
You may currently be capped at $70,000 in Vallejo, but you’re still making 32% more than your area’s median income for a single female ($46,245 avg teacher vs. $31,743 median - same sources as above). And that’s before making any of the adjustments for fewer work days or beter retirement benefits. In addition to that, Vallejo teachers have 100% medical coverage paid for by the taxpayers.
Thank you for pointing out that California teachers don’t qualify for Social Security. I had intended to do so in the article, but see that it got left out. I do, however, point out that your pension is worth more than 3 times your SS benefits, so you’re not exactly losing out there, are you? I can’t find a source indicating that your CalSTRS membership will cause the denial of your husband’s benefits. Could you please provide one?
As for teachers spending their own money on student supplies, I addressed this in my follow up post. 1) This is a personal choice, not a business expense, and 2) if this problem is so rampant then why don’t teachers strike for a bigger school supply budget instead of more pay and 100% medical benefits (as your district did in 1993)?
You do make one excellent point. The administrators are far too numerous and much too highly paid in government school districts. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a good source of actual data for them. Should you provide me with one (or I come across one myself) I’ll be more than happy to write another article discussing their largess. But just because you make less than your extremely overpaid bosses does not mean you’re not overpaid yourselves.
Looking forward to hearing more feedback!
Just curious, are you also taking into account level of education when computing salaries? Were I to leave my current teaching position with my level of education (Post-Graduate) and my experience, I can assure you that I could make much more in the private sector. Finally, our benefits are not paid at 100%. The District pays 80% of the Kaiser package, whereas I pay 20%, which amounts to almost $400 a month that is taken out of my paycheck for these benefits. This does not include co-payments.
While you may state that it’s a “personal choice” to buy school supplies, as a teacher it’s not much of a choice when faced with students who live well below the poverty level. As for striking, our union is currently negotiating with the District to make changes in what we get reimbursed. We’ll see if it pans out.
Finally, I thought this http://fromthereporter.com/spe.....ndex2.html might interest you. However, keep in mind that it does not include the salary of our state appointed administrator, Richard Damelio.
ms_teachers last blog post..It’s Time for a Carnival
I always find articles like this interesting. It is similar to a conversation that my husband and I often have. The way we have resolved our discussion is ” I can’t do your job, you can’t do mine. What would I want to be paid to do your job? A lot more than you make. What would you want to get paid to do my job? Oh, really that’s not what I make, honey, now is it?”
In your post it looks like you are comparing teachers to all wage earners. I wonder how only including those with a 4 year college education would change the numbers.
Your main second point is spot on, Kirchy. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find comparable numbers for only college graduates, so I am comparing to all wage earners. It’s one of the (admitted) flaws in the post. That is why I included the blurbs from the Manhattan Institute’s report to show the national percentages versus other highly educated (or specialized) careers.
As for your first point, I couldn’t agree more. You could not pay me enough to be an elementary school teacher (although college or private high school could be cool). There are many jobs I would never accept at the offered pay rates. however, instead of taking the job and complaining about the pay I simply find a different line of work - something that teachers are free to do.
Ms_teacher,
Not sure why your comment got caught in the moderation queue
I actually ended up addressing the level of education comment in another comment lower on the page before discovering your comment.
I’ll take your word on the 80% health benefits figure. I pulled the hundred out of an old news article about the 1993 strike (that I can’t find again). Still, an 80% benefit is far more than most people receive these days.
I hope you do get something worked out on the supplies issue. At my daughter’s school they got around the problem by offering extra credit to students who bring in extra school supplies (a solution I’m also not happy with). I also hope, however, that once a solution is found I’ll stop hearing teachers (and their supporters) complain about the issue.
The link you included is wonderful. THANK YOU! Trust that there will be more articles of this nature in the future aimed at other public employees and that link is a great starting point. On to the specifics, I thin kit’s ridiculous that the average Principal in your district (not hard math, just an eyeballing) makes twice what the average teacher does. And why on earth does a Public K-12 school district need a “Director Of Student Housing”?!? Even setting aside (for the moment) his $167,739 compensation package, this seems to be a pointless post.
For the record, I’m not saying that teachers ARE overpaid. I’m not sure if they are or not. I just strongly disagree that they’re nearly as underpaid as the media (and the teacher’s unions) portray them. The point of the post was to open discussion, not to take teachers to task. I think teachers do a great service. Even the bad ones are a good thing top have around, and the good ones are absolutely indispensable.
I have never complained about my pay, but what irritates me is people thinking I make too much.
As you say “…You could not pay me enough to be an elementary school teacher…” OK if you couldn’t get paid enough then inherently you are saying that elementary school teachers do not get paid enough.
Locall garbage collectors make about $23 an hour. Would I say that is too much? No, because they perform a service I have no desire to do. Do teachers make too much? No, they perform a service most people do not want to do, otherwise schools would close because so many would be homeschooling.
Ask any parent on the third rainy day of vacation, teachers are not overpaid. They not only maintain order with large groups of children, they keep them engaged in academic content.
In the last week of work I have spend five 13 hour days, and one 17 hour day, compared to your 40 hour work week. Try recalculating the numbers based on unpaid teacher overtime.
Welcome Rachael!
What, may I ask, were you doing at school for 17 hours on either Saturday or Sunday? I have a hard time believing that occurred unless it was some sort of extracurricular activity. For that matter, what students were on your campus prior to or after 6? I simply don’t believe you.
Provide me with some verifiable data of all this supposed overtime teachers (in general) work and I’ll be happy to recalculate. However, don’t assume everyone works a 40 hour week. My standard work week is six 20 hour days (including National holidays) - and I don’t get a single minute of overtime. In fact, I still make less than the average teacher in Morgan Hill. And I’ll happily scan in my pay stub to show y’all.
