Teachers are underpaid, and it’s their fault

Education is near and dear to my heart. I am not a full-time teacher, but as a volunteer, I have taught semester-long programming classes at local high schools. I helped coach a middle school MathCounts team and was scheduled to be an assistant coach for a high school speech team until a medical issue forced me to drop out. I was a parent volunteer in my children’s schools, I am a licensed substitute teacher, I served on the committee that helped bring computers into the classroom in Cedar Rapids, and I even ran for School Board in the 1990s.

Last week, in her ‘Condition of the State’ speech, Governor Kim Reynolds spoke of how influential teachers are in the lives of children. Based on the influence of great teachers in my life and my children's lives, I know she was right. But according to the Iowa Department of Education, there were 333 unfilled teacher positions in the state after the start of the 2023-2024 school year.

In response to the teacher shortage, Reynolds said, “We want younger Iowans to see the teaching profession as something to aspire to. It’s one of the highest callings one can have, so let’s make sure that teacher pay sends that message.”

Reynolds announced a new initiative to increase the minimum starting salary for teachers to $50,000 per year. This would move Iowa from 36th to 5th place. The only states with higher starting pay would be Hawaii, Washington, New Jersey, and (I know it’s not a state) the District of Columbia. Of course, all those states have a significantly higher cost of living!

I think this will have a positive impact on teacher recruitment in Iowa. But what about the other end of the pay scale? According to the National Education Association, salaries for public school teachers in Iowa top out around $72,000 per year. Teachers point out their pay is not comparable to engineers and other professionals in Iowa. According to Indeed.com, engineer salaries in Iowa range from $60,000 to $124,000 per year.

I've witnessed firsthand the profound impact that skilled teachers have on shaping the future. Teachers in my life, from family to my children’s mentors in Cedar Rapids, have been pivotal. They possess a professionalism and expertise that's undeniably parallel to that of engineers, accountants, or lawyers. Yet, their compensation does not reflect this.

Teachers are underpaid, and it’s their fault!

I know it sounds harsh, but teachers have made a “Faustian bargain” with their union. They have accepted a pay model with lower salaries in exchange for job security. It is not enough to compare teacher salaries and engineer salaries. To understand the differences, it is necessary to consider the compensation models under which teachers and engineers work.

Teaching is a unionized profession. Is that good or bad? That’s not our topic today, but there are both advantages and disadvantages.

As unionized employees, teachers enjoy a high degree of job security. You rarely hear of teachers being laid off or fired. In the U.S., very few engineers are unionized. I work as a software engineer for an A.I. company, and in our industry, we get laid off by the tens of thousands.

In their union contracts, teachers are generally paid based on criteria like years of service, certifications, and continuing education. These criteria are mostly objective, and a teacher can predict their salary progression by checking off a list and factoring in district-wide negotiated pay increases.

In other professions, like engineering, there may be similar objective criteria but that’s where the similarity ends. In engineering, there is often a bonus structure in addition to base pay. The bonus can be a significant part of an engineer’s compensation. The catch is that the bonus is not guaranteed and is usually performance-based. Sometimes, the bonus is applied to a group and based on objective criteria like company sales or department cost-savings. Salary increases (and bonuses) may be linked to subjective criteria like: “taking ownership of problems,” “providing leadership to junior engineers,” or “developing innovative solutions.” In these professions, it is possible, even likely, that there will be pay disparities between employees with similar backgrounds and tenure. As an engineer, I have been in jobs where I felt that these subjective criteria were applied fairly and jobs where I felt that my supervisors did not understand my work and evaluated me unfairly.

If teachers want to be paid like engineers or other professionals, they need to reconsider their unionized compensation model. They need to give up some job security and allow for both objective and subjective criteria to be factored into salaries. In education, this is often called ‘merit pay’.

Whenever a merit pay discussion comes up, we hear the same arguments. Things like, “How can we objectively measure teacher performance?”

Objective measures like standardized test scores or grades may not be the best choice because these are heavily influenced by factors outside the teacher’s control, like parents’ education level. So, that leaves subjective evaluations. Teachers argue that no one can really determine who the best teachers are or somehow rank them.

But let me tell you something that I know is true from my time as a parent, volunteer, and substitute teacher. It’s not that no one can determine who are the best and worst teachers. It’s just the opposite, everyone knows! Ask any student or parent! And if you catch them in an unguarded moment, ask any teacher. Everybody knows!

I wrote, “Teachers are underpaid, and it’s their fault!” Perhaps I should tone that down. Let me re-state it, “Teachers are paid appropriately for the compensation model they have chosen.”

David Chung is a Gazette editorial fellow. david.chung@thegazette.com