Market forces for products, not people

0

There’s a lot of talk about teacher compensation in the United States, and Colorado is no exception. What gets less attention is the rate of pay for school district employees such as teacher’s aides, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, clerks, and janitors, collectively referred to as “professionals.” educational support”. Nationally, these support professionals number 2.2 million, while classroom teachers number 3.2 million. The National Education Association analyzed federal data and found that there is no state in the country where education support professionals earn enough, on average, to support themselves and a child while living in the most affordable metropolitan area in the state.

Pay ratios in school districts are quite tight compared to the private sector. The Economic Policy Institute found that in 2020 the CEO’s pay to the typical worker was 351 to 1, but in many school districts the ratio of school superintendent to lowest paid employee is closer to 10 to 1. The narrow range of pay in school districts is partly the result of having much smaller budgets to work with. Additionally, employee unions, the general sentiment that teachers should be paid as much as budgets allow, and salary standards set by the education community can also be credited with narrowing the salary range in districts. school. Principals can oversee thousands of students and staff and earn about five times the average teacher’s salary.

Although the lowest-paying positions in school districts are usually just above minimum wage, school districts often provide health insurance as well as public pension plans to employees who work less than full-time but more 20 hours per week. These benefits, which are often not available in the private sector, attract support staff, so schools are able to retain these employees. But why can’t they pay a living wage?

The simple answer is that there is not enough money for everyone. The more nuanced answer is that low wages are acceptable in our economic system, so schools, which, to quote educational philosopher John Dewey, “are a reflection of society”, pay part of their labor as little as possible, as in the private sector. If schools were to emulate the private sector more, they could follow Taco Bell’s lead.

Currently, many Taco Bell restaurants offer drive-thru meal service only. To some extent, a similar shift has taken place in schools. Nearly two-thirds of school districts in Colorado have four-day school weeks. Denver Public Schools is offering enrollment bonuses to bus drivers, special education paraprofessionals and others. While a four-day work week and signing bonuses might appease workers for a while, they don’t provide living wages.

Perhaps another way to combat low salaries paid by schools would be for schools to limit the number of people they hire to only the number of people their budgets can afford to pay a living wage. Schools receive funding based on the number of students enrolled, but in an effort to provide as many services to their students as possible, school districts have stretched those dollars by paying much of their labor at low cost. wages. If a school district were to reduce its number of paid positions to a number at which it could pay a living wage, a bottom-of-the-envelope calculation puts the decrease at about 25%. Of course, no school board would advocate such a drastic decision. This would lead to a reduction in essential services. Instead of students going to school four or five days a week, they might only go three days a week. If bus drivers and cafeteria workers saw their working hours reduced by 40%, this translates approximately to an hourly wage increase of 65% (assuming that total wages remain unchanged).

Four-day school weeks and employee hiring bonuses could be the harbingers of a change in pay structures and school structures. Schools are experiencing staffing shortages as their lowest paid employees leave the industry and demand higher salaries. Underpaid workers in essential industries are able to demand and receive decent wages. If they stopped showing up for work, society would feel the effects.

***

This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

Email: [email protected]

Share.

Comments are closed.