2023-10-13 00:11:00
BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – A lot of teachers go into the profession to follow their passion.
With living costs increasing and a nationwide teacher shortage, are teachers getting paid enough for what they do?
The Economic Policy Institute reports that teacher pay has suffered a sharp decline compared with the pay of other college-educated workers.
On average, teachers made 26.4% less than other similarly educated professionals in 2022—the lowest level since 1960.
Teacher wages are dictated by school districts and funding comes from the state legislature and taxpayers
“Attracting and retaining teachers is huge. When I first came to Mandan, we were about five or 6000. Our starting pay was about five or 6000 less than Bismarck’s. We’re gonna continue to lose teachers for Bismarck and we made it a practice is our priority to get our starting pay up,” said Mike Bitz, Mandan superintendent.
This year’s starting salaries are fifty-one thousand six hundred dollars in the Mandan district and next year that will go up to fifty-three thousand eight hundred dollars.
This is the highest in the state besides Williston for larger school districts.
Bitz says pay is not everything but it does help retain teachers.
But paying teachers more requires extra help.
“They can lobby the legislature to receive more funding to better impact their bottom line. They could technically, they’re really reluctant to raise property taxes. And we know that that is a very touchy subject, but then they can do other things like improve the benefits as well,” said Nick Archuleta, president of North Dakota United.
Teachers like Dave Augustadt at Wachter say he is content with his pay and was part of negotiating teacher pay for Bismarck schools.
“We feel that the pay, plus the changes in benefits we were able to come to a middle ground that each side had to do a little give and take but it was something that worked for all of us,” said Dave Augustadt, Wachter teacher.
He says public education is a great source of cultural capital and it’s how we advance ourselves as a society.
Getting teachers into the profession in spite of the pay is also an issue.
“Maybe people are attaching less value to the profession of teaching. And now we are seeing the results of that there are fewer and fewer young people choosing education as a viable career,” said Archuleta.
Governor Doug Burgum has created a task force to help with the state’s teacher shortage.
North Dakota ranks 34th in average salaries for Public School Teachers, according to the National Education Association’s Rankings of the States for 2022 and Estimates of School Statistics 2023 report.
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