Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess public opinion in the United States regarding differential pay for science and math teachers. The few studies that have examined this topic have either relied on direct opinion surveys or assessed the effects of a differential pay program after it is in place. To yield more genuine data aligned with public sentiment, a representative sample of adults living in the United States completed a series of seven activities in which they ranked seven occupations according to how they believed each should be paid relative to one another. Across the seven activities, six of the careers remained constant and those were all non-teaching careers. The seventh career varied as the relative ranking of science and math teachers was compared to other teaching roles. Results revealed that the public equivalently ranked different teacher roles and did not assess science and math teachers at a higher or lower rank than teachers of other disciplines.

1. Introduction

In the United States, there exists a long held public opinion that K-12 school teachers are underpaid, dating from the 1950s to modern day ^{1, 2}. It has also been shown that unsatisfactory salary, in addition to other factors such as lack of administrative support and student misbehavior, contribute to teachers leaving the field ³. Resulting difficulties are particularly acute in terms of recruiting and retaining science and math teachers ^{4, 5}. As a means to attract and retain science and math teachers, policies of differential pay have often been proposed and occasionally enacted.

Differential pay policies call for teaching positions that are in high demand disciplines (i.e., where critical shortages exist) receiving higher salaries, or simply “if schools need to attract candidates with hard-to-find skills or to meet challenging goals, compensations should reflect that” ⁶.

Advocates of differential pay for science and math teachers indicate it is a straightforward strategy to entice and retain teachers. This argument is made particularly in light of the consideration that individuals likely to teach science and math possess valued science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills and therefore are more easily drawn away from teaching by higher salaries offered by other professions ⁷.

In 2020, researchers found that when surveyed directly about backing differential pay for high need subjects, such as special education, science, and math, over 80% of respondents were somewhat supportive and very supportive ⁸. However, the sample in that study was composed only of teachers and therefore not representative of the general public. Though older studies that examined the topic found moderate support for differential pay ⁹, conversations about differential pay have shifted and become more focused on pay based on student performance, and less on teachers’ discipline.

In this study, the objective was to assess public opinion regarding whether science and math teachers should be paid more than teachers of other disciplines. To avoid social desirability bias, respondents were not asked directly if they favored differential pay for science and mathematics teachers. Considering the general positive ethos surrounding STEM, it was conjectured that direct questions of this nature would bias individuals to state support due to a wish to align with social norms. Instead, as explained fully in the Methods section, respondents ranked multiple teaching and non-teaching careers according to what they believed each should earn in salary relative to one another. In sum, the primary inquiry of this study was to gauge public opinion regarding the relative salaries of science and math teachers as compared to other disciplines.

2. Relevant Literature

In 2020, the average annual salary of K-12 classroom teachers in the United States was $65,917 ¹⁰. Yet, across the country, there is considerable variability in teachers’ mean salaries ¹¹. For example, in 2019, average salaries ranged from a low of $45,192 in Mississippi to a high of $87,543 in New York ¹². Though it is not the point of this paper to contend whether teacher salaries are objectively reasonable, it is valuable to provide some general context. In a series of studies, researchers found that in 2020 public school teachers earned 19.2% less than other workers at comparable education and experience levels. They additionally found that this gap has increased in recent decades—from a 1.8% difference in 1994 ^{13, 14}.

Similarly, Liu and Aubry ¹⁵ examined multiple prior studies that attempted to evaluate the comparability of teacher salaries to other careers that require a college degree. They noted challenges to such comparisons involves reasonably controlling for the amount of weeks worked as well as union and industry benefits. Although some studies that Liu and Aubry ¹⁵ examined pointed to teachers earning “significantly less in wages than similar workers in other occupations” (p. 2), the researchers resolved overall that teachers earn about the same as other private sector workers. However, when considering total teacher compensation packages, which include pension and health benefits that have been reduced since the Great Recession of 2008, the matter remains unclear.

What is clearer is that there exists public empathy in the United States regarding teacher pay. Through examination of a poll of a nationally representative sample, Henderson et al. ¹⁶ found that the majority of the public believes that teacher salaries should rise. It is valuable to note that when survey respondents were not informed about teacher salaries in their states that 72% of the respondents favored increasing teacher salaries; however, when respondents were informed about teacher salaries in their states, support for increasing teacher salaries diminished to 56% of respondents ¹⁶. These findings contrast contentions that have been made asserting teacher salaries in the United States are sufficient as they are. Arguments asserting teacher pay is adequate point to factors such as the value of pension programs, job security, and higher pay in private schools ¹⁷.

Regarding strategies to determine teacher pay, merit pay systems have often been debated and implemented. Merit pay systems are pay-for-performance structures in which teacher pay is tied to factors such as academic achievement and growth of students. In a survey of a representative sample of American adults, Peterson et al. ¹⁸ found that 60% of the public support the idea of “basing part of the salaries of teachers on how much their students learn” (p. 10). Though there exist many mitigating variables, evidence does indicate that higher student performance, as measured by standardized academic assessments, is more likely to be found among schools providing merit pay systems ¹⁹. In a meta-analysis of 37 studies, Pham et al. ²⁰ found that there exists a positive and statistically significant relationship between teacher merit pay and students’ academic performance.

While, merit pay systems lead to differential pay among teachers, the primary focus of this paper is that of differential pay based on the subjects taught by teachers. The proposal of paying science and math teachers a bonus or supplemental pay has not been as widely discussed as comprehensive merit pay systems. Nonetheless, differential pay for science and math teachers has been considered as a strategy to recruit and retain science and math teachers because it is believed their experiences and skillsets make them more marketable and attractive to STEM industries that typically offer considerably higher salaries. In fact, Biggs and Richwine ¹ found a central reason that average teacher salaries appear to be less than those provided to non-teaching positions in other fields, even when controlling for years of experience and education, is due to higher wages found among STEM careers.

Research that is specific to the effects of differential pay based on subjects is limited. Bueno and Sass ⁴ performed one of the few relevant studies in which they examined the effects of a statewide salary differential program that was put in place in Georgia. Legislation in Georgia provided for secondary school teachers who became certified in math or science to immediately be advanced on the state salary schedule. The law also provided annual stipends in the amount of $1,000 to elementary teachers who earned endorsements in science or math. Findings indicated that the differential pay system markedly reduced the issue of middle school and high school science and math teachers leaving the field. However, no substantial evidence was found in support of the legislation prompting students majoring in education to change their focus and become certified to teach science or math.

Bringing together the ideas discussed in this review of literature, what is absent is a current understanding of public opinion regarding differential pay for science and math teachers. To address this, the following study was designed. To avoid social desirability bias and possible political bias, participants were blind to the purpose of the study. Specifically, instead of asking participants directly for their opinions about differential pay for science and math teachers, participants were asked to complete an activity in which they ranked seven careers in order of how well each should be paid to one another (see Methods). The research question addressed was the following: How does the public position science and math teachers’ salaries as compared to salaries of teachers of other disciplines?

3. Methods

A representative sample of over 500 adult participants who live in the United States were solicited from a crowd sourcing firm to complete an online ranking activity. Participants were nominally compensated and the task required approximately one minute of their time.

Participants were randomly directed to one of seven nearly identical online activities. Participants were presented with seven job titles and asked to order the jobs in order of the average annual salary they thought each should earn relative to one another. Across all seven activities, the following six job titles were included: chiropractor, dental hygienist, electrician, family therapist, firefighter, and loan officer. These occupations were selected because they are commonly known and because the annual mean wages of these occupations are comparable to teacher salaries in that they are within about 25% of teachers’ mean salaries ¹⁰. The mean salary of three of the occupations is below that of teachers and the mean salary of three of the occupations is above that of teachers. As reference, the mean salary of K-12 elementary, middle school, and high school teachers in 2020 was $65,917. The mean salaries of the other six jobs range from that of a family therapist ($56,890) to that of a chiropractor ($83,830).

The seven nearly identical activities all contained the six nonteaching careers plus one of the following teaching careers:

1. Third-grade teacher

2. Seventh-grade science teacher

3. High school science teacher

4. Seventh-grade math teacher

5. High school math teacher

6. Seventh-grade English teacher

7. High school English teacher

Participants completed the task once. To avoid survey fatigue and consequent inattention, participants were not allowed to repeat the activity. Participants were informed only that the purpose of the activity was to assess opinions about salaries for different careers. Participants were unaware that the researchers would most scrutinize their placement of the teacher role.

The positions of the third-grade teacher, the seventh-grade English teacher, and the high school English teacher served as comparisons to the science and math teaching positions. Though it is noted that third-grade teachers undoubtedly teach science and math, elementary teaching positions are not typically included in discussions related to differential pay policies in support of STEM teachers; therefore, the third-grade teacher position was also considered as a comparison to the science and math teaching positions. To additionally assess if secondary level of teaching (i.e., seventh-grade versus high school) affected rankings, both middle school and high school levels were included for the science, math, and English positions.

Participants dragged the seven job titles they saw in the online activity to place them in the order they believed was most appropriate, from lowest to highest pay. The order of the job titles were converted to numeric rankings with lowest pay equal to 1 and highest pay equal to 7. It was not relevant to this study to assess how well the respondents’ rankings matched or aligned with actual data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The point of interest was to determine where they placed the teaching position and if that ranking was different when the teaching position itself varied.

Mean ratings were calculated for the job titles for each of the seven activities. The ratings for the teacher positions were culled in a separate database for comparison. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to determine differences in ratings among the seven types of teaching positions and to particularly evaluate if the science and math teaching positions were significantly different from the other teaching positions. If ANOVA tests indicated significant differences, then post hoc Tukey tests were also applied to determine where significant differences existed, i.e., between which teaching positions.

4. Results

On the seven-point scale of teacher salaries, mean ratings of the teacher positions ranged from a low of 3.72 for the middle school English teacher position to a high of 4.22 for the high school math teacher. Despite this seeming difference, ANOVA tests indicated there were no statistically significant differences between annual salary rankings assigned to the different teacher positions (F(6, 547) = .531, p = .785). A summary of teacher position ratings is provided in Table 1. In other words, the type of teaching position did not affect the relative salary rankings assigned by the public.

The mean ratings in Table 1 are statistically equivalent. Taking a step back, we consider the study’s experiment in which, through a series of more than 500 trials, one of the seven teacher roles found in Table 1 was presented to participants alongside an identical set of six other careers. No doubt, had the study instead compared relative salary rankings between a traditionally high paying career, such as that of a surgeon, to that of the seven teaching positions, the surgeon position would have ranked highest. Yet, in this experiment, the point was to “expose” the seven teaching roles to the same environments for comparison, i.e., the list of the other six nonteaching positions that earn similar average annual salaries as teachers. Participants were not aware that the focus of the study was on where they placed the teaching position. The fact that the relative rankings among all seven teaching positions are statistically equivalent signifies that the public does not place greater monetary value on science and math teacher positions when compared to other teaching roles. The limitations of this study and the generalizability and implications of these findings are discussed in the following section.

5. Conclusions

In conclusion, the results of this study must first be viewed in context of its limitations. First, the design of the study constrained the comparison of science and math teachers to only elementary school teachers and secondary English teachers. While these comparison roles are considered reasonable, they may not be representative of all other non-STEM teaching positions. Moreover, the study did not include other high needs teaching positions, such as special education, as a comparison.

Unlike traditional public opinion polls, this study used a more genuine strategy in which participants were unaware of the direct purpose of the salary ranking activity they completed. This provided a fair examination of how people rate teacher salaries by discipline as compared to other occupations. The equivalent results among all of the teaching roles leads to the conclusion that the public does not place any greater or lesser weight on science and math teachers’ remuneration than it does for other teacher positions. This can have considerable policy implications. If the underlining public sentiment is that teaching disciplines should be unvaryingly awarded, as this study indicates, then proposals to provide differential pay for science and math teachers as a means to recruit and/or retain those teachers, must be coupled with a drive to win public support. Incidentally, the results of this study also indicate that the public favors paying elementary teachers the same as teachers in middle school and high school; therefore, the results of this study can also be used to counter propositions and schemes to pay elementary teachers less than teachers of higher grades.

References