Teachers unions promote the myth that teachers are paid so little that they leave for other jobs that pay better. But this isn’t true. In fact, teachers are usually paid better than they would receive in another job. As Joanne Jacobs points out, “most ex-teachers earn less“after leaving teaching, and “quitters rarely prosper.”:
Most teachers who leave their jobs don’t earn more eight years later, reports Sarah D. Sparks in Education Week. Most who left a large urban district made about $10,000 less per year, on average, than teachers who had stayed with the district, concludes a new study.
“Despite persistent concerns that educators are leaving the field to obtain higher incomes elsewhere, we find that the median employed leaver makes less than before they left teaching and their earnings do not recover nearly a decade after exit,” researchers wrote. Those who stayed in education earned more than those who switched fields…
Nearly 60 percent of the teachers who left the district took other education jobs. Those who chose to leave education averaged less than $40,000 seven years later, writes Sparks.
That doesn’t include the 20 percent who were not in the workforce eight years later: Many were raising children, especially women married to high-earning men.
Leaving education entirely did pay off in a big way for about 10 percent of early-career teachers, who as much as doubled their salary within four years,” she writes. “Teachers of science, technology, engineering, and math courses made upwards of $100,000 within a few years of leaving education.”
The study looked at teachers in a high-poverty, high-minority district that paid teachers more than the state average. Still, 17 percent of teachers left, on average, each year.
Teachers unions tend to support paying the same salaries to teachers of very different subjects, even though that can result in teacher shortages in areas like science and math, and far more applicants than needed in other subjects.
This makes no sense. Teachers should be paid more if there is a risk of them leaving the teaching profession for a better-paid job, and be paid less if there is no risk of them leaving because they are being paid better as a teacher than they would be paid elsewhere.
Nor is it necessary to raise teacher pay to improve student performance. Studies have found that there is little link between teacher pay and test scores.
There also is little link between education spending and test scores. In 2022, “D.C. Public Schools Spent $31,843 Per Pupil; But D.C. 8th Graders Had Lowest Math and Reading Scores in Nation,” reported CNS News. Washington, DC spent more per student than any of the 50 states.
By contrast, Utah spent only $9,424 per student — less than a third as much as D.C. — yet its students performed above average. The Washington, DC schools have been spending more than any state for years, even as its students lag behind the students of all other states on tests, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
