Low teacher pay has long been an issue of concern for progressives, and research by the Economic Policy Institute is leading the way to make the case for a higher level of compensation.
"We don't have legislative strategies, we provide actionable information," said EPI researcher Lawrence Mishel. "We think this is very high-quality economic research."
EPI has been around since 1986. A think tank focused on research around policies that help poor and working class Americans, the organization works to provide information that can assist lawmakers and stakeholders in developing legislation.
"We pride ourselves in having a state-level network called the Economic Analysis and Research Network, or EARN," said Mishel.
The state-based economic analysis and research network has allowed for advances in promoting the interests of workers.
Teacher pay is one of the group's most pressing issues. While most sectors of the economy have been hard-hit over the past two decades, teachers especially have been expected to do more with less.
"Our research is very straightforward," said Mishel. "Comparing earnings and wages of public school teachers with comparable workers—others with similar degrees—we find that if you measure it weekly through the entire year, weekly pay has declined since the 1990s."
The coronavirus crisis has exacerbated the issue, said Mishel, but also likely given parents and caretakers a view of what teachers do.
"I think that people experiencing teaching at home appreciate teachers more now," Mishel said.
The effort to raise salaries is ongoing, but there have been some indications that change is coming. Mishel pointed to Sen. Kamala Harris' proposal in 2019 to raise teacher compensation when the now-vice presidential nominee was running for president.
"It's definitely in play in the policy world," said Mishel.
Teachers have been fighting for higher pay and better benefits and hours for years. An explosion of labor action in 2018 and 2019, starting in West Virginia, resulted in increased compensation for teachers there and in Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona, and Los Angeles.
Mishel said that in his view, teachers need to strike more and demand higher increases in wages and better treatment. Lower compensation affects the ability to attract talent, leading to more entrenched and older staff staying on past when they would retire and receiving commensurate salaries—until turnover from an event like the Covid outbreak forces a change.
"It's a challenging time," Mishel said. "Finances at the state and local level are affected by the recession, and you can't cut state budgets without cutting the educational budget and teacher compensation."
Moving forward, expect teacher strikes and the battle over compensation to continue -- as the country adjusts to a remote learning schooling reality the ramifications of which won't be fully clear for years. Fights over taxes, budgets, and the future of the American school system are likely only beginning, and while EPI and EARN are on the frontlines of disseminating information on salaries, they face formidable opposition in charter school proponents and the public.
One thing that's not going to change, at least not in the short term, is the ability of teachers to find scrappy, innovative solutions to budgetary problems beyond their control.
"Teachers are heroes," Mishel said. "They have to do a lot with a little."
