Reprinted with the permission of the Toledo Journal

National study: Teachers among top wage earners

By: Bob Stiegel
The Toledo Journal

The next time taxpayers hear Toledo Public Schools teachers demanding more money or claiming they’re underpaid, they might want to remember results of a recent analysis of labor statistics.

Public school teachers in Toledo, as well as in nearly every metropolitan area in the United States, are paid more than virtually all other white-collar professions. And that’s not even taking into account their lucrative pension benefits and health insurance, one of the study’s authors says.

“We wanted to give people a realistic idea of what teachers are actually paid ... and put an end to the popular fantasy that they’re paid like fast-food workers,” Jay P. Greene told The Journal.

Analyzing data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Mr. Greene and Marcus A. Winters found that, nationally, the average earnings for a public school teacher is $34.06 an hour, compared to $25.08 an hour for other professionals, including economists, mechanical engineers, chemists, psychologists, architects and newspaper editors and reporters.

Using 2005 data, the authors found that the average public school teacher was paid 36 percent more per hour than the average non-sales white-collar worker and 11 percent more than the average professional specialty and technical worker.

Toledo is not among the 66 metropolitan areas for which the BLS provided data, Mr. Greene said.

However, he noted that in 65 of the 66 areas, teachers are paid more than other white-collar professionals and that he is certain Toledo is among the majority.

He said Toledo likely would compare statistically to the Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati metro areas, where teacher hourly earnings were, respectively, $35.67, $38.36 and $36.72. Other white collar professions in those cities had average hourly wages of $21.78 to $25.93.

“The general pattern of results is similar across the metro areas,” Mr. Greene said.

Mr. Greene, who has a doctorate in education, was contacted by The Journal in Fayetteville, Ark., where he is the head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. He also is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, which published the teacher-pay report and has posted it on its web site.

Mr. Greene said he and Mr. Winters undertook the study in part because of a popular belief that public school teachers are grossly under-compensated, a claim often reinforced by such organizations as the National Education Association and politicians supported by teacher unions. Locally, former mayor Jack Ford – who was endorsed by the Toledo Federation of Teachers throughout his political career –frequently commented that teachers should be paid “at least twice as much.”

Mr. Greene said the analysis was based solely on data provided by the federal government.

“All we’re doing is repeating the numbers the Bureau of Labor Statistics gave us,” he said. “We’re not saying teachers are overpaid or underpaid. We simply want people to think about what teachers are actually paid.”

Among the 66 metro areas analyzed, Detroit came out on top with average teacher pay of $47.28 an hour. The lowest was $21.67 an hour in Greensboro, N.C., but that still was higher than the average $21.56 an hour earnings for other white-collar workers in that city.

Mr. Greene told The Journal he is familiar with personal claims that a teacher works several hours a day on school work at his or her home. That may be true for some, but anecdotal accounts don’t prove that all or most teachers take work home, he said.
The analysis, again using BLS data, determined that full-time public school teachers work on average of 36.5 hours a 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, the study says. It says private school teachers work 38.3 hours per week.

John Foley, superintendent of Toledo Public Schools, is among those who question the work-hours data, saying there’s “not a perfect science” for gauging how much time teachers put into their jobs. Also to be considered is the time teachers spend in professional development programs, he said.
“I guess I would comment that there is far more to education than just coming in an punching a clock,” Mr. Foley said.

In their report, Mr. Greene and Mr. Winters wrote that some believe the “the extra time that teachers spend grading, preparing for class, and assisting extracurricular activities is not included in the BLS figures, but the BLS appears to include all these activities in its work-hour calculations.”

They wrote that a survey determined that about one-half of teachers take work home, but that about one-third of workers in management, professional, and related occupations reported working at home.

“If any of this work at home, either by teachers or other professionals, is considered by the employer to be part of the actual hours worked, it is included in the BLS figures,” the study authors wrote. “It is possible that teachers, as well as other professionals, put in some hours at home that are not captured in these numbers, but those hours would not be considered required for their jobs and thus are not part of their paid employment.”

The study compared wages on a per-hour and per-week basis. It didn’t compare on a per-year basis because teachers have several months off during summer vacations as well as extended spring and winter breaks, Mr. Greene said.

Critics of the study might note that teacher wages often are lower than other professions’ when compared on a 12-month basis, Mr. Greene said. But he said other factors that would have to be considered are the supplemental wages teachers get from summer jobs or the value of “enjoying that time off” while others are working.

Comparing wages based on a 12-month basis also is flawed when teachers consider their salaries to be based on devoting about nine months to their jobs, Mr. Greene added. “If people don’t believe that, ask them whether they think teachers would work for 12 months for the same pay they have now,” he said.
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The analysis of public school teacher pay can be viewed by visiting www.manhattan-institute.org.