How the Education System is Failing our Children: Teachers

It is a common agreement educator’ in the public school system should be paid more than they currently are. We can see many online discussions conveying low wages given to those instructors providing education and knowledge to our youth, in conjunction with larger classes, with few resources.

It begs the question, how much does the average public school teacher make, where do those funds originate from, and is there an ability to increase the wages? Also, would it help the education system, if teachers’ wages were more?

A look into the teachers’ salaries is necessary. One of the issues for this determination is the fact within the United States, the public school system does not have a standard involving teachers’ wages across the states. Each state has its unique minimum wage, and within that state, each district contains its own wage range.

A comparative analysis was done in 1986 by Stephen M. Baro between United States teacher salaries and Japan’s teacher salaries. [1] In this report, the issue of non-standard wages within the United States is brought up. Additionally, the complexity continues as the wage is distinguished by state, district, and even to which grade the teacher is working in.

In his comparison analysis, Baro points out for the Japanese school education system is “a teacher’s total salary is made up of his or her basic salary, as specified in the applicable schedule, plus a large ‘bonus’ (paid semiannually) equals nearly five months base salary, plus an array of special allowances based on personal need factors and teaching assignments.”

Whereas in the United States, there is no set standard structure involving the teacher’s salaries. He goes as far as calling the United States teacher salary structure a “misnomer.” Yet, there is some form of uniformity, allowing him to provide his analysis.

Baro points out that for the United States public school teacher, there is a “single salary schedule covering teachers at all levels from elementary through high school.” This typical local salary schedule takes the form of a matrix, in which the columns reflect units of post-baccalaureate education completed and/or higher degrees earned corresponding to their years of service.

Where the differences range is based on the states and districts, meaning each location may count teaching experience differently. One crucial point, in my opinion, he makes is overall there are no distinctions of rank among teachers, and no ratings of merit or performance are reflected in teacher salary schedules, with exception of a very small percentage of U.S. districts.

This is a problem. What this means is, that the salary increase is determined on time within the system, as opposed to a yearly review of the quality of education given.

What is the average salary?

According to the article titled ‘Best States for Teacher Pay in 2022, written by Nicolle Okoren at Buisiness.org, the national average teacher salary is based on education level. On average teachers in Elementary School’s yearly salary is $61, 350, Middle School’s is $61,320, and High School’s average is $61,820.

Oklahoma does provide a ‘Minimum Salary Schedule’ on their sde.ok.gov website. Reviewing the salary schedule, it is made up of years of experience, and incrementally if the teacher has the following degrees; bachelor’s, bachelor and national board certification, master’s, master’s and national board certification, and finally doctor’s degree. For a quick comparison, a teacher starting with zero years of experience and a bachelor’s minimum salary is $36,601 to one having a bachelor’s with 25 years of experience minimum salary is $50,049. What I personally find odd is that the same teacher has 25 years of experience with a doctor’s degree minimum wage is only $54,395. With only four thousand dollars a year difference, what is the incentive for public school teacher to expand their personal education?

Arkansas provides a K-12 Teacher Salaries 2022 study, found on their arkleg.state.ar.us site. The study, it breaks the average yearly salary down by Arkansas county. The average ranges from high $61,682 in Washington County, Fayetteville School District to the lowest $33,800 in Yell County, Tow Rivers School District. This study also provides the wage gap issue between the highest and lowest County wages.

Where does the funds come from for teacher salaries?

If you do a quick review, the initial answer is the money comes from government-related and concerned government agencies, and the taxes of the people of the United States. In other words, it is provided by the Federal, State government and your tax dollars.

We already identified each state, and district that has its unique matrix used to provide their teacher’s salaries. A prior look at the minimum wage within Oklahoma and Arkansas gave us a view of how salaries or proportioned.

Let’s start with Oklahoma

According to [Oklahoma School Finance], the Oklahoma revenue for public schools comes from four sources:

1. State Appropriations
2. State Dedicated Revenue
3. Local Revenue
4. Federal Revenue

The premise is again based on student population, student, and district characteristics when taking into account how much funding per Oklahoma school.

According to OKPolicy.org for 2023 spending for all education agencies makes up 44 percent of the state budget, or $4.6 billion. “Accounting for inflation and enrollment changes, public education will have eight percent less funding in FY 2023 than in FY 2022, continuing the longtime trend  of underfunding public education.”

Let’s review Arkansas

According to aradvocates.org each Arkansas school district receives income from local property taxes to provide public education. in 2011, a little over $1.5 billion in property tax revenues was distributed statewide.

Typically the Federal Government contributes about 7% of the total school budget, and the remainder is split evenly between local contributions such as local property taxes and state contributions through income and sales taxes.

You can find the revised preliminary 2021 allocations for elementary and secondary education on the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education website. They have the funding broken up by section.

Of Interest

While each state does provide these allocations online, I cannot help but make a couple of comments here. Each state provides its own format, and website design and is not standard. it would be nice to have a standardized method to provide this information to the public.

One way to do this is to provide dedicated data sets across the states and school districts, allowing the public to acquire the raw data. Data sets are typically provided in file formats such as spreadsheets. This can then be used for comparison, review, and trending based on personal or public interest.

I did find Oklahoma providing datasets located on a dedicated webpage, data.ok.gov/dataset. I could not find any dedicated pages on Arkansas primary website.

Some Final Thoughts

I learned how the funds were appropriated for the overall education system. However, there is not a consistent standard across all the states. Some states appear to do a better job supplying a fair amount of funds between districts and providing those amounts to the public in a easily digestible method.

It is my opinion, that the system has been set up for a long time, and I suspect, for the most part, those within the respective areas are attempting to do the best they can.

Thinkingimpact provides a nice table, showing the number of teachers in America by state, along with the student-teacher ratio.

For Oklahoma 43,280 teachers give 14 students per teacher ratio. However, I know in our area, the ratio is more like 1 teacher to 25 students.

For Arkansas, 31,977 teachers give 28 students per teacher ratio.

I know logically, each classroom will not equal this student-per-teacher ratio. There may be some classrooms with fewer students and more students per teacher. It does provide an idea of the difficulties the individual teacher has in a large student classroom.

With the low minimum wage and poor incentive for the teacher to acquire higher education, I suspect many are just attempting to get through each day. With increased demand, and lack of resources we see many leaving the profession.

According to the learning policy institute, the primary reasons teachers leave are working conditions, receiving little to no support from their principals, and inability to collaborate with their colleagues. More than 1 of 4 pursue other career opportunities.

As of August 2022, it is reported by the National Center of Education Statistics, that 44 percent of public schools will report teaching vacancies.

With the pay and respect shortage, I can only see this trend continue.

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel where more content and educational videos can be found.

I am sharing this series through my Podcast, Info By Matt Cole.

You can find my Podcast on all the platforms above! Be sure to subscribe to Info By Matt Cole Podcast on your favorite platform!

---

---

---

#KnowledgeShare | Matt Cole | #infobyMattCole