How new teachers in North Carolina are grappling with unprecedented low wages

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Visible distress flashed across Ginger Strickland’s face as her eyes scanned the bills and receipts littering her kitchen table. Christmas is always a tough time of year for her family, but this year, she knew it would really be a stretch.

Strickland, a drama teacher in the Alamance-Burlington School System, celebrated her 17th year of teaching in August. But the single mother of two said although she has enjoyed a full life with her children, money has always been tight.

“It’s just difficult,” she said. “One year there’s the benefits and they’re solid and they’re there, and then the next year they threaten to take them away, or they do take them away because of cuts.”

Strickland said making ends meet year after year is only getting more difficult – and her observation holds weight.

According to a report released in September by the Economic Policy Institute, the teacher pay penalty – how teachers’ salaries compare to salaries of other college-educated workers – hit a record high in 2018.

The findings show that teachers’ salaries nationwide are about 20 percent lower than comparably educated fields, which is higher than 17 percent in 2015. North Carolina ranks worse than the national average – teachers are paid about 35 percent less than other comparably educated fields in the state.

Sean Doocy, a researcher at UC Berkeley who studies teacher pay, said wages have been on a downward trend since about 1990, but education funding cuts have been a catalyst for the significant lowering of teacher wages.

“Many states have been implementing tax cuts and taking money out of the public education system,” Doocy said. “For the past 20 or 25 years, there’s been a dramatic shift where teachers are making significantly less than other professionals.”

For teachers like Strickland, these funding cuts have real-world consequences. She said being a teacher in North Carolina, a state with some of the lowest wages for teachers, is one of the hardest things she has ever had to do.

“There’s no support for teachers,” she said. “I know money isn’t everything, but sometimes I wonder if I could be happier in a profession that pays much more.”

The inability to adapt

In May, North Carolina claimed national attention as teachers across the state walked out of their classrooms and went on strike to advocate for higher wages. But Doocy said political movements associated with low teacher wages are a relatively new phenomena.

“In the 1970s, there wasn’t really a teacher pay penalty, especially for women,” he said. “Women who were working as teachers were making more money than other women who were comparably educated.”

In fact, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average teacher in the U.S. made about $46,000 in the 1969-70 school year.

The figure, which the center adjusted to reflect a modern dollar value, is nearly $8,000 more than the average starting salary for teachers currently in the U.S., according to data from the National Education Association.

Caitlin McLean, a research specialist at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, said the shift in wages occurred after the education field stopped adapting to a growing economy following the 1970s, with funding cuts playing a large role.

“In most other countries, there’s significant public funding that goes into the sector to make it work, but the U.S. is reluctant to do that,” McLean said. “I think in education, there is a tendency to think of compensation as incentive, rather than something teachers just get for doing their work.”

A report from the North Carolina Association of Educators found that the starting salary for North Carolina teachers saw a 4.6 percent increase, or about $5,500, from the 2003-04 school year to the 2012-13 school year.

Despite the jump, McLean said teachers are making relatively the same amount of money as they were in the 1970s, and some even less, which puts the profession extremely low on the national wage scale.

“They’re not necessarily right at the bottom, but they’re very close, of everybody,” McLean said. “Everybody talks about how valuable the work is, but it’s not reflected in the way teachers are paid. There’s an expectation now that teachers will always have to endure low wages.”

‘Far behind other states’

The crowd in downtown Raleigh grew louder and louder as Marian Knotts confidently marched with her mother, a teacher in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. She said throughout the teacher walkout on that warm morning in May, she actively felt her life changing.

“It is my belief that being a teacher is one of the hardest possible jobs in this day and age,” Knotts said. “Every other country in the world gives educators the respect through what they do and by pay scale they deserve, and we do not. If we want dedicated teachers, we have to show them that they matter.”

In anticipation of the event, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education made the decision to close schools over a week prior. Knotts said attending was extremely important to her, especially because of how North Carolina ranks nationally for teacher pay.

“I think that, just like with any big change, the only way things move forward is if we speak up and speak out,” she said. “Change only happens if you act upon it, and that’s exactly what these movements are about.”

These types of teacher movements did not officially begin gaining momentum until the 1990s, according to Education Week. Though the first statewide walkout occurred in Florida in 1968, widespread efforts to increase teacher wages came much later.

But increasing wages in states like North Carolina – which has the 10th highest poverty rate nationwide, according to the North Carolina Justice Center – can pose a challenge to school districts that provide teacher salaries with additional supplements from taxpayer money.

Jeff Nash, a spokesman for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, said even though the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area is one of the more affluent districts in North Carolina, the 16 percent supplement offered to teachers is still low.

“The supplement comes from local money,” he said. “The state might say, ‘Okay, we’re going to pay $36,000 a year,’ and then each local school district can say, ‘Okay, we’re going to add 3 percent or 12 percent,’ or whatever they can afford locally with taxpayer money.”

Nash said some rural districts in the state cannot afford to offer a local supplement, which contributes to low figures for average teacher wages in North Carolina.

Even though the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district is able to offer its teachers a pay supplement, the cost of living in the area coupled with North Carolina’s national rank is making it difficult to recruit future teachers, he said.

“We’re still far behind other states in pay,” he said. “What we’re finding is 22 year olds are most concerned with, ‘Can I actually do this job? I’ve been studying it in college, but now in the real world, can I get out and do this and be successful?’”

Moving forward

North Carolina ranks 41st in the U.S. for teacher wages, with an average salary of $48,000, according to a report from the National Education Association.

Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that teacher salaries in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools are 8.6 percent lower than the state average, with the average teacher making about $43,000.

Nash said to recruit young college graduates, the district has implemented a plan called Project Advance, which is a teacher compensation program that rewards teachers monetarily for attending professional development sessions. Teachers can earn up to an additional $200 per month with the program.

“You earn these badges, and you demonstrate in the classroom that you can use these strategies and you move up in that way,” Nash said. “These bonuses are not huge, but we don’t want teachers to just survive. We want teachers to thrive.”

For students like UNC-CH senior Savannah Patterson, an extra $200 per month could make a huge difference.

Patterson, a high school biology student teacher at Cedar Ridge High School in Orange County, said she is currently deciding if she wants to begin her professional career in North Carolina.

“It’s hard for me to grapple with staying in Chapel Hill to teach, especially because North Carolina doesn’t pay teachers well,” she said. “It’s like, do I make this risk – and knowing that there is a chance I will be living under the poverty line – do I make that risk and stay and teach these kids that I know and I love?”

With Project Advance, Nash said he hopes to keep teachers in North Carolina, rather than watching students like Patterson take their skills elsewhere.

“I think when you’re coming out and you’re 22 years old, you want to change the world,” Nash said. “The opportunity to do that in the state you’re from and have people all going through this together, I think that’s attractive.”

But the realities of teaching in North Carolina – low wages with a high teacher pay penalty – are difficult consequences.

Nash acknowledges that until there is significant legislative reform, there will always be teachers in North Carolina like Strickland who sit, visibly distressed at their kitchen tables, as they gaze over bills and receipts.

But despite the warning signs, Patterson said she is hopeful for the future of education and for her career as an educator.

“At the end of the day, I’m there for my students – I’m there for my kids,” she said. “I feel like the purpose of education is to question what you’re told, and so I will never stop questioning how the state compensates my value. I can promise you that.”

Edited by Paul Cuadros