A Feminist Perspective on Teacher Pay: Education’s “Me Too” Moment by Michael J. Franklin

Education’s “Me Too” Moment

Teacher pay is sexist and damages both teachers and students.  While the “Me Too” movement has exposed sexual discrimination rampant in Hollywood, the more mundane sexual discrimination issue holding back educators remains muted.

“I knew the pay wasn’t great, but I don’t think I truly understood in terms of expenses, in terms of just being able to get by, how close I would be cutting it.  I make about $34,000 as a teacher.  Right now, I can’t save, I can’t buy a car, I can’t buy a house, but I can get by.  The only thing that I ‘m able to save is my tax return.  My battery in my jeep died a few months ago, and I just kept thinking, ‘When that car dies, I’m going to have to buy another one,’ and the monthly payment – I just don’t know how I’ll do it.”

–First Year Teacher in Oklahoma

“I have been teaching for almost 20 years.  I’m a single mom, I make about $69,000 a year, and I still depend on my mom sometimes.  It’s not about wanting a pay raise or extra income, it’s about wanting a livable wage … When I pay all my bills, there is nothing left to put in savings.  I’m terrified that I won’t have anything to put toward my eldest daughter’s college education.”

-Teacher in North Carolina

The adjacent teacher accounts reveal financial insecurity, and research says that teaching induces stress too (Rand 2022). The anxiety begins with teacher pay. On average, women are paid $0.79 for each dollar men make (Scheider and Gould 2016). Alabama teachers make $0.75 on the dollar compared to male-dominated professions requiring similar education and credentials (NEA 2021). The under-compensation of teachers may seem innocuous on first glance.  However, because the majority female profession is paid below the national gender pay gap (Robbins 2020), we have a feminist issue.  

This paper links the social-emotional stress teachers face in the classroom directly to their paychecks so that educators can say “Me Too” to encountering sexual discrimination in the workplace. By removing the stigma of gendered teacher compensation with Jacob Vigdor’s “evidence-based” salary scale, teachers and students can perform better.

The Gender Pay Gap Impacts Teachers and Students

This report contends that the economic insecurity faced by teachers is based on damaging gendered stereotypes denigrating the care work inherent in education as “women’s work.” The teacher gender pay gap undermines upward mobility and teacher efficacy in the five following ways.

Care Work as Women’s Work

Internalization of “Women’s Work”	Women	Men
Rate of compensation based on work load	Requested less money	Requested more money
Rate of work based on compensation	Worked longer, moreefficiently	Worked shorter, lessefficiently.

Female majority professions involving caring for people – called care work or “women’s work” – pay less than fields dominated by men (England, Budig, and Folbre 2002). Worse, the notion of “women’s work” creeps into the psyche. An experiment asked men and women to (a) preference compensation based on tasks and (b) anticipate output for said amount. Figure 1 shows the women in the 1984 study imagined they would work harder to receive less money than the men (Major et al. 1984). The trend continues today as women still expect to sacrifice wealth to participate in care work (Aarntzen et al. 2023).  Internalizing “women’s work” as undervalued skews one’s understanding of employment.

Consider this memo’s survey of fifty-eight Alabama teachers. Over 90% of respondents viewed education as a majority non-male profession. More than 94% of respondents answered that teachers are underpaid, and 97% said the national gender pay gap of $0.79 to $1 is sexist.  

Here’s where the responses got interesting. When asked to decide if teachers are paid below the gender pay gap based upon the fact that teachers earn $0.75 per hour for every dollar earned in male-centric professions, only 91% of respondents acknowledged the statistic as true.

Respondents then answered “Is teacher pay sexist?” at an even lower rate of 64%.

The responses confirm that some teachers internalize their care work as undervalued “women’s work.”  Teachers online discuss how gaslighting in education coerces teachers into sacrificing self over school (Heubeck 2022). Gaslighting specifically causes victims to accept the blame for their circumstances (Sweet 2022). The present study reveals 34% of those surveyed have been gaslit to deny the reality of being paid below the gender pay gap.

Teacher Penalty

Research confirms that the trend perpetuates when teachers believe they will and should be paid less.  Allegretto and Mishel say the teacher penalty educators pay reduced average weekly wages for teachers between the years 1996-2015. While other college graduates saw their average weekly compensation increase by $100, teachers saw theirs decrease by $30.  Male teachers can earn 25% more in other positions and are thus more likely to seek administrative work; however, administration is no safe haven from patriarchy (Glass 2000).

Management Myth

Over half of U.S. principals are women (NEA 2019), but they serve in lower-paid elementary and middle school roles (U.S. Department of Education 2022). In comparison, 75% of superintendents, who earn more than twice that of any teacher (Thomas et al. 2023), are male (Ramaswamy 2020).  Possibly related, male administrators express more interest in becoming superintendents (Gullo and Sperandio 2020). Increased compensation in education preferences men while financial and mental fatigue keep the majority female teacher workforce from doing their best at work.

Communication Breakdown

The sexual abuse of gendered underpayment leaves teachers penniless and voiceless. Male administrators believe they lead an open environment, but research shows otherwise. Over 90% of administrators believe their employees feel comfortable voicing their opinions at work; only 30% of employees agree (Jacobson 2018). Employees compelled to cover their identities encounter mental health issues (Herman 2017; Ofosu 2018). Half of respondents from this paper’s survey do not feel comfortable being themselves at work. Socio-economically undervalued, teachers align their self-expression to match what is expected from dominant culture – compliance.

Student Achievement

The negative effects of the teacher gender pay gap manifest in student achievement. Michela Carlana’s research indicates that, where there is a gender preference present in a classroom, students of the preferred gender outperform students of the other[s] (2019). Further, students perform better when teachers are paid better (Britton and Propper 2015; García and Han 2022). Exactly 75% of the respondents to this memo’s survey agree they would be more effective teachers if paid well. School districts can continue to perpetuate the negative effects of gendered stereotypes through inadequate teacher pay, or they can choose a novel approach.

A Worthy Proposal

Jacob Vigdor’s evidence-based salary scale rewards educators for the heavy lifting inherent in the first decade of education (2008). “Sink or swim” is a real phenomenon (Varah et al. 1986) teachers experience as they master their craft. Stressed and underpaid, many consider quitting on a daily basis.  Instead of leaving teachers exposed, start teachers at the upper ends of the salary scale to encourage expertise and retention. 

Yes, intense economic forecasting will be required to actually pay teachers what they are worth.  Because of inflation, salary scales must be adjusted too.  The $60,000 annual salary, indicated in Figure 4 for a novice educator in 2008, would need to increase to $83,000 to have the same purchasing power in 2023 (Bureau of Labor and Statistics).  Some solutions involve the federal government providing an ongoing $10,000 Teacher Tax Credit (Benner et. al 2018).  Others suggest the government quit wasting billions on the Federal Charter School Program (Burris and Bryant 2019) and the 500,000,000 tons of annual cafeteria food waste (WWF 2019).  Could athletic programs still serve the academic goals of schools on decreased budgets?  A district similar in size to the one surveyed for this memo, for example, recently spent $42 million for athletics at just seven schools (Thomas 2023).  For that matter, teacher retention saves $20,000 on every new hire (Learning Policy Institute 2017).  The money is there; impoverishing a gendered class is a choice. 

Virtually eliminating the salary schedule for an evidence-based approach means teachers begin their careers building wealth.  It means their care work can no longer be undervalued as “women’s work.”  Immediately implementing an evidence-based salary means teacher efficacy and student achievement both improve.  An evidence-based salary scale ensures more experienced teachers will be in a school building longer.  Continuity in human resources encourages greater opportunity for long-term growth and also saves money. Based on this brief memorandum, school districts need only question whether they can afford not to compensate teachers fairly under an evidence-based salary scale.

About the Scholar

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