Report: Colorado teachers face highest 'pay penalty' in nation
Click play to listen to this article.
Public schoolteachers in Colorado earn nearly 40 percent less than other college graduates, the highest "teacher pay penalty" in the nation, according to a new report.
Sylvia Allegretto, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the report's author, said Colorado's ranking is likely linked to the state’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which restricts how lawmakers can invest in education. TABOR does not allow for new or expanded funding beyond annual adjustments for inflation and population changes.
Teachers' wages have remained stagnant but the costs of education, along with health care and housing, are rising much faster than regular inflation.
"Over time, you’re going to have larger and larger gaps between what the public schoolteachers in the state are making and what other college graduates are making," Allegretto explained. "This is detrimental to recruiting and retaining teachers."
In the last school year, Colorado faced a shortage of nearly 7,800 teachers. Nationally, people who choose careers in education earn, on average, 27 percent less than other college graduates. Over the past three decades, teachers’ real weekly wages have declined by 5 percent, while wages for other college graduates rose by 30 percent.
Public school funding has also taken a hit from a push to create what Allegretto described as a "separate" education system, where tax dollars follow students who attend private charter schools not accessible to all students. Allegretto believes the federal government will need to play a bigger role in order to achieve one of the nation’s greatest ideals.
"That’s to educate each and every kid, regardless of means," Allegretto emphasized. "We’ve never gotten to where we need to be but what’s happening now is certainly not going to get us there."
Allegretto argued closing the pay gap between teachers and similarly educated professionals is essential to boosting student achievement and securing the future of public education.
"The teaching profession is one of the most consequential occupations in the country," Allegretto stressed. "Teachers have the future of the country in front of them, each and every day."
