Utah teachers' pay below nearby states
There are no comments for this page [ Add Comment ]Sunday, December 31, 2006
By Lynze Wardle
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau lwardle@standard.net
lwardle@standard.net
LAYTON -- After nearly three years of teaching 10th-graders, Erika Stevens found herself exhausted and in the market for a new job.
The former Layton resident, who taught at Taylorsville High School in Salt Lake City from January 2004 to May 2006, said her paychecks did not justify the 50- to 60-hour work weeks.
"I really, really did love it, but it was just so much work," said Stevens, who now works for Primary Children's Medical Center as a fundraiser and event planner.
"I couldn't imagine spending the rest of my life working that hard for so little pay."
Utah had an average teacher salary of $40,316 in 2005-06, according to the National Education Association. That's nearly $9,000 below the average national teacher salary of $49,109.
Many of Utah's neighboring states, including Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado and Nevada, offer higher salaries.
Francine Johnson, Utah State University's associate dean for the College of Education, said states like Texas and Nevada actively recruit Utah teachers. Many are lured away, she said, with promises of better pay, on-site graduate school programs, and financial incentives for things like ESL endorsements and reading certificates. Nevada's Clark County School District offers incoming teachers a $2,000 starting bonus in an attempt to draw educators to the region.
The Las Vegas area enrolls 12,000 new students a year, said Dave Sheehan, the district's public information specialist, and brings teachers from all over the U.S., Spain, the Philippines and Guam to fill classrooms.
"We're starved for teachers, so we have to recruit elsewhere," he said.
Utah is also on the brink of a teacher shortage, according to a report earlier this year by the Utah System of Higher Education.
The state's colleges and universities are not producing enough teachers to fill classrooms, according to the study's author, Dr. David Sperry, scholar-in-residence in the Higher Education Commissioner's office.
Sperry reported that there were 139 teaching vacancies throughout the state when this school year began and said there will be a "severe teacher shortage crisis" in Utah if the number of teachers leaving the profession and the lack of incoming teachers continue at current rates.
Utah's education officials are asking for a major influx of money to bring new teachers to the state and to help keep those already here.
This year, State Board of Education officials created a three-part teacher-retention program called ProExcel, designed to boost teacher compensation, improve retention and improve educational leadership.
The program includes plans to strengthen teacher-mentoring practices, provide marketing incentives for teachers willing to work at hard-to-staff schools, and supply ongoing training and assessment for school administrators.
State board members have requested that legislators fund a $50 million request for the ProExcel program and approve a $223 million request to increase the amount of money school districts receive per student, known as the weighted pupil unit, by 10 percent.
On Dec. 12, Gov. Jon Huntsman announced he would recommend the largest budget increase for education in Utah history. In a letter attached to his proposed fiscal-year 2008 budget, Huntsman wrote, "It is important to make education our top priority, embracing the undeniable link between education and economic vitality."
The governor has proposed budgeting $153.7 million to increase the weighted pupil unit by 7 percent and $21.9 million for the state's ProExcel program. It would also put $25 million in one-time money toward teacher salaries, giving every teacher a $1,000 bonus.
Huntsman's budget falls short of what the State Office of Education has requested but is still a welcome improvement, said state Associate Superintendent Patrick Ogden.
"We were pleased with Gov. Huntsman's budget recommendations and we find hope in them," Ogden said. "We have not yet abandoned our request for increasing the value of WPUs nor ProExcel."
He said the WPU increase would boost teacher salaries, but would vary in amount around the state as each school district's teachers negotiate their own contracts.
For this year, at least, educators like East Layton Elementary School teacher Barbara Batchelor will have to be satisfied with their current salaries and the less-tangible rewards that can come with the profession.
It has been more than 30 years since Batchelor left an accounting position with General Motors for a career in education.
Even though it meant taking a significant pay cut, Batchelor said she needed summers off to spend with her family. She said her love of teaching children has kept her in the classroom long after her children were grown.
"I stay for the boys and girls," she said. "The twinkle in their eye when they finally learn something -- that's what's kept me teaching."
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