Analysis
sheds light on teacher salaries
Average figures
alone don't offer fair comparison
Sunday, October 03, 2004 • BY ROBERT GEBELOFF •
Star-Ledger Staff
The average teacher in
Ventnor, a small beach town near Atlantic City, earned
$54,405 last year.
That's less than teachers
in 237 other New Jersey school districts earned and slightly
below average for the state as a whole. Yet Ventnor teachers
may very well have the best deal of all faculty in the
state.
Compared with other towns,
teachers in Ventnor are among the youngest. They are also
among the least likely to have a master's degree or
doctorate. Combined with the fact that Ventnor is located in
a region with a relatively low cost of living, the salaries
in Ventnor stand out above the rest.
A Star-Ledger analysis of
teacher compensation found Ventnor's salaries are 24 percent
higher than a district with its demographics and faculty
makeup would be expected to pay -- the largest such
difference in New Jersey.
Ventnor officials said
their pay scale is fair and in line with local taxpayers'
wishes to not skimp on education. The city of 13,000
residents recently approved a bond issue for a $16 million
addition to the community's school complex.
"There has been a
commitment in this community to not only maintain, but to
upgrade the educational opportunities and facilities," said
Andrew McCrosson, the city administrator.
The analysis is an effort
to shed new light on teacher pay. When taxpayers look to
compare their district with others, the best tool available
from the New Jersey Department of Education is the annual
School Report Card, which includes the amount a teacher at
the midpoint of each district's payroll earns.
Comparing these numbers
can be highly misleading , however. Teacher pay is largely
dictated by contractual provisions -- teachers with
experience and advanced degrees get paid more than younger
teachers with only a bachelor's degree.
"The district with the
highest average salary could be the one where every teacher
in the district is near the top of the salary guide, while a
district with a low average salary might have an excellent
contract but a lot of new teachers," said Stephen Baker, a
spokesman for the New Jersey Education
Association.
The Star-Ledger analysis
found five factors that directly influence the average pay
in school districts: experience, advanced degrees, the size
of districts, the type of districts (K-12, etc.) and the
local cost of living.
Using a technique called
"regression analysis," the study weighted the importance of
these factors, examined figures for each district and
calculated a predicted salary for a district based upon
these underlying numbers.
The analysis is similar to
complex studies school board and union negotiators undertake
to assess contracts.
"The average salary is a
statistic we don't even calculate because it's not something
we'd provide a board going into a negotiation," said Frank
Belluscio, a spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards
Association. "A teacher going into a district with a higher
average salary is not going to be making more than a teacher
going some place else."
Because the analysis is
based on factors that closely correlate to teacher pay, the
predicted salary for most districts is quite close to the
actual average salary. In cases like Ventnor, where there is
a divergence, there could be any number of
explanations.
In some cases, towns
purposely have upped teacher pay as a strategy to attract
top teachers and improve schools. In other cases, the
figures could represent the success or failure of unions to
negotiate the best deal for their members.
In general, teacher pay in
any given district is based on a long legacy of
negotiations, as teacher contracts change slowly over time.
Therefore, the reasons a district appears to pay more or
less than comparable districts could be historic -- the
result of a negotiation or policy decision made years
ago.
"These contracts are
historical documents," said Kate Smith, president of the
teachers union in New Brunswick. "They are not one-shot
deals. We all live with decisions that were made at other
times."
What the analysis provides
is a benchmark for such a discussion -- a figure that makes
for a better comparison among districts than a simple
average.
For Ventnor, a
medium-sized K-8 district in a low-cost region where the
average teacher has 10 years of experience and 11 percent of
instructors have advanced degrees, the analysis concluded
that such a district would pay its teachers $43,835 on
average.
"While our residents
aren't willing to pay through the roof, they value the
education of children very highly," said Carmine Bonanni,
the superintendent of schools.
Bonanni also noted that
Ventnor teachers only have to put in 11 years to reach the
top of the district's salary guide, an unusually short
duration that helps boost employees to high salaries earlier
in their careers.
Another district with a
similar structure is Edison, a large K-12 in Middlesex
County. Teachers there have roughly the same experience and
education level as faculty in nearby New Brunswick, yet earn
nearly $8,000 more on average.
"It comes up in our
negotiations all the time," Smith said.
Until the 1998 Abbott v.
Burke decision made more money available to urban districts,
she said, New Brunswick had little to offer in contract
negotiations. Now, she said, the pay scale has been
improving -- but the gap is still wide.
Meanwhile, Edison
officials say teacher pay is generous there by
design.
More than a decade ago,
the township's school board "intended to make sure that
their salary guide was very competitive, if not the best in
the area," said Daniel Michaud, the Edison district's
business manager. So it began reducing the number of years
it took for teachers to reach maximum pay.
"Our board today has the
same philosophy," Michaud said. "They don't want to lose
good teachers to better-paying districts."
Robert Gebeloff can be reached at
rgebeloff@starledger.com or (973) 392-1753.
Copyright 2004 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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