By LAURA HAMMACK, guest columnist
In my last column, I introduced readers to an important report that was recently released to the public. The report, “A Roadmap for Improving Indiana Teacher Compensation,” was authored by the Next Level Teacher Compensation Commission, a special commission convened by Governor Holcomb to study teacher compensation in the state of Indiana.
I’ve been a true student of this report and have read it many, many times. It is an impressive document with extensive research, unusual transparency, and action-oriented recommendations that are simultaneously challenging and innovative to ideate. That tension is compelling and I am anxious to witness how the 37 recommendations are received at the state and local levels.
There is no question that increasing teacher pay is a paramount priority. We are witnessing fewer teachers entering the profession and more teachers leaving the profession than ever before. The teacher shortage, particularly in rural communities across our state, is real. To illustrate, when I interviewed as a first-year teacher in 1996, I was interviewing against hundreds of other applicants. Today, we are lucky to get 10 applications for one posted teaching position. Sometimes, we get none.
The report dives into better understanding how the “teacher pay gap” happened in Indiana. School districts fund teacher salaries from state revenues. The report concludes that, when adjusted for inflation, 2019-2020 funding was more than 7 percent lower than levels in 2010. Additionally, when compared with other states in the nation, Indiana was 22nd in per-pupil spending in 2004, but fell to 36th in the nation in 2018 and a dismal 11th in the Midwest.
The report notes, as it should, that an increase in state funding doesn’t independently solve Indiana’s teacher compensation problem. The report challenges local school districts to find efficiencies and reduce non-teacher expenditures as the percentage of dollars spent in the classroom has decreased over the past 10 years. Locally, over the last 4.5 years, we have realized that challenge with the reduction of over $4 million in overall operating expenses. My grave concern is that we are currently running so tight, there is very little left to “efficiency.”
In my last column, I left you with the tease that my next column would explore the specific recommendations included in the report for local school corporations to consider. Well, I failed on that account. I promise that you’ll receive those recommendations in the next column. The “how” behind the teacher pay gap seemed important to explore and, I believe, informs the recommendations included for both local districts and state government.
The authors of the report summarized that in order to realize competitive teacher compensation, there are three essential steps:
1. encouraging and implementing expense reallocation measures, so more dollars currently spent on other needs can be redirected to teacher salaries;
2. increasing sources of revenue available for teacher pay; and
3. improving teacher compensation-related policies.
If you are interested, the report, in its entirety, can be accessed here: in.gov/gov/files/Teacher-Pay-Report-FINAL.pdf.
Thank you for your interest in teacher compensation policies across our state and locally in Brown County Schools. Our future is depending on us getting this right.
Laura Hammack is superintendent of Brown County schools. She can be reached at 812-988-6601 or [email protected].
