Join getAbstract to access the summary!

The Teacher Pay Gap Is Wider than Ever

Join getAbstract to access the summary!

The Teacher Pay Gap Is Wider than Ever

Teachers’ Pay Continues to Fall Further Behind Pay of Comparable Workers

EPI,

5 min read
5 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

In the United States, school systems pay too little to attract high-quality teachers.

auto-generated audio
  • 0.5×
  • 0.75×
  • 1×
  • 1.25×
  • 1.5×
  • 1.75×
1×
auto-generated audio

Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Eye Opening
  • Overview

Recommendation

Why aren’t more young people choosing to pursue, and remain in, the teaching profession? In this comprehensive report, economists Sylvia A. Allegretto and Lawrence Mishel offer an eye-opening overview of how the present school staffing challenges emerged, as well as a data-backed analysis of the ways that downward trending teacher pay affects schools’ ability to attract and keep the high-quality teachers they need. getAbstract recommends this report to present and future educators and education policy makers.

 

Summary

The most crucial school-based factor of how well children will do in their education is whether they have good teachers. It is therefore imperative that school districts find and keep the best educators. However, the education system in the United States today faces many challenges in achieving this: high turnover rates, retirements of long-time teachers and fewer college students opting to prepare for the teaching profession.

The teacher supply problem comes at a time when many local mandates are shrinking classroom sizes, increasing staff diversity and raising student...

About the Authors

 Sylvia A. Allegretto is a labor economist and chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Mishel is the president of the Economic Policy Institute. 

Comment on this summary