Showing You the Money

NEA launches a national initiative to boost teacher and ESP pay. Now comes your part.

By Dave Winans

Ah, the new school year. New young faces, new solutions to the challenges of your job, and (gulp) new bills to pay back home. It’s definitely time to reassess your economic worth. But where to begin? You might start by joining NEA’s groundbreaking national campaign to boost educator pay.

The goal: win a $40,000 minimum salary for every teacher and an “appropriate living wage” as starting pay for every education support professional (ESP). “To provide a quality education to kids, our members need to stand up for themselves,” stresses NEA President Reg Weaver. “That means advocating for pay to recruit and retain the very best educators available.”

Want to get on board? Here are some simple ways.

Build on the success of your colleagues.

Some already have negotiated starting teacher pay of $40,000 and beyond, and others are well on the way. By mid-summer, New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) locals had bargained multi-year contracts with teacher minimums of $40,000 or more in more than 58 percent of the state’s school districts.

Yet more inspiration: through a community-focused “living wage” campaign, the 1,090-member Birmingham (Alabama) ESP bargained a higher pay scale last year that, among other things, boosted the starting wage for school nutrition employees from $6.59 to $9.50 an hour. And in Montana, the Helena Education Association (HEA) negotiated its state’s highest teacher minimum, $30,000—a one-year jump of $7,000.  

Remind people you’re worth it.

The folks in Helena, Montana, did. “We convinced our district that its number one asset is educators. You pay for these people first,” explains HEA President Larry Nielsen. “The research proves that they are the number one factor affecting student achievement.”

By educating their district about the complexity of their jobs and how their low salaries compared with those paid elsewhere, school nurses in NEA-St. Louis (Missouri) recently bargained a better pay scale, boosting minimums from $23,431 to $32,306 and enabling the district to fill 10 of 13 nursing vacancies. “If you believe you’re invaluable to the district, you’ve got to maintain your professionalism and make your presence known in the school building,” stresses nurse negotiator Susan Davis. “Make other people believe in your value!”

Any teacher or ESP can start this conversation. Before graduating this year from the University of South Dakota, Robin Musch—a new elementary special education teacher in St. Francis, Minnesota—had this to say to fellow college students who scoffed at her career plans: “As a teacher, I touch more lives than any other profession I can think of. I help young people be problem-solvers and I instill hope in them. It’s a hard task, but somebody has to do it.”

Do your research.

Still have doubts? You have the numbers on your side—so dig into the abundant data that can help you win higher pay.

Figure out the cost of living in your region with the help of a credit union, a local university, or an online family budget calculator. Then compare salaries with neighboring districts or other, similar professions.

Last year, researchers at the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute (www.epinet.org) found that between 1996 and 2003 inflation-adjusted teacher weekly wages rose just 0.8 percent—far less than the 11.8 percent growth of weekly wages of other college graduates. And in a spring employer survey, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (www.naceweb.org) uncovered an alarming gap between average starting pay for teaching ($29,733) and that for professions such as accounting ($44,564) and software design/development ($53,729).

Take your case to the community.

The arguments for better pay are all around you—be it the departure of new teachers to higher-paying professions, the fatigue of veteran colleagues working outside jobs to survive, or the ever-growing duties and professional demands generated by state and federal standards.

The Washington Education Association (WEA) has made “professional compensation” for educators a top priority, reports WEA President Charles Hasse, “and we know the general public is squarely on our side; they don’t want their sons and daughters entrusted to people making substandard salaries.” The very best folks to connect with community supporters, Hasse stresses, are locally respected NEA members, “competent professionals speaking on the need for improved salaries.”

Stick your neck out.

Steve Alberghini, a special education paraeducator at North Kingstown (Rhode Island) High School, is proud of his NEA local affiliate’s ability to improve ESP pay through “creative” means, such as bargaining paid lunch for paras. But he’s still tired of “quarter raises” and low expectations.

“I don’t care if the statewide para ‘average’ is $14 an hour,” Alberghini says. “Somebody has to go past the starting gate and say, ‘We need more—the median is not enough! Somebody needs to break the ice, take the lead, and demand [a living wage].’”

“We need to take care of ourselves; nobody else can do this for us,” agrees Lumberton Township (New Jersey) Education Association President Debbie Bruhn, who has bargained a $40,942 teacher minimum for this new school year. “We deserve a salary equal to any other profession. For the most part, more teachers have more advanced degrees than people in other, higher-paid professions—and we must constantly improve our skills.”

Illustration: Debra Dixon