The American Federation of Teachers is out with the 2002 edition of its Survey and Analysis of Teacher Salary Trends, and this year's report is even cheekier than usual. Acknowledging that, according to the union's own data, "average teacher salaries improved faster than inflation for the fourth time in five years," the authors demand yet more money for teacher pay. The AFT analysts admit that the teacher "shortage" today is spotty, largely confined to certain specialties and places. (For additional coverage of the teacher shortage question, see below.) What they keep harping on is that beginning teachers get salary offers that remain lower than those for college graduates in general.
But so much is left unsaid. Among the unremarked issues: that teachers have far more generous (and costly) benefits than most college graduates. That (at least after the first few years) teachers enjoy far greater job security than most college graduates. That teachers don't work as many days or hours and that their hourly compensation rate is competitive, if not superior to that of many other skilled fields requiring a college degree. (For a fine analysis of this phenomenon, see Richard Vedder's piece in the spring 2003 issue of Education Next.) Also unsaid--of course--is the folly of salary schedules that persist in paying the same to great instructors as to mediocre pedagogues; that pay the same regardless of whether an individual's teaching field is in shortage or surplus; and that pay the same (within a district anyway) whether one is teaching in a tough or pleasant school.
But it doesn't serve the union's interest to suggest that its members and would-be members are adequately compensated or that the basic arrangements by which they're compensated are screwy. So all of that goes unsaid. You can, however, get some useful numbers from this 75-page document, including state-by-state pay scales and metro-area pay and cost-of-living indices. You will also encounter a laughable effort (Appendix C) to demonstrate that unionized teachers earn more and that states with collective bargaining have higher test scores. Gadfly has insufficient room to debunk these wild claims other than to note that the averages mask huge variations. (Thinly unionized Georgia and North Carolina, for example, pay their teachers better than heavily unionized Iowa and Florida.) Have a look if you like. You can find it at http://www.aft.org/research/survey02/SalarySurvey02.pdf.
