This quote comes from an ABC 17 news report, but it is simply not true. They attribute that statistic to “A recent report by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.” Over the past few weeks similar stories have spread like wildfire across Missouri media outlets. The Kansas City Star calls this “pathetic.” The Herald-Whig draws on this statistic to claim that Missouri’s school funding is “inadequate.”

There’s just one problem—the statistic is completely wrong.

Although the $31,842 figure is attributed to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), DESE officials did not calculate the figure. In his report to the State Board of Education, Paul Katnik, assistant commissioner at DESE, cites this figure from Niche.com. But, of course, Niche.com didn’t calculate the figure. It cites a report from the National Education Association. We don’t know how the NEA calculated the figure.

What is shocking is that people who should recognize how wrong the number is have not done so. Rather, they are perpetuating this lie. For instance, Todd Fuller, the director of communications for the Missouri State Teachers Association (MSTA) is quoted by KOMU as saying, “I don’t think it’s surprising that we’re ranked where we are…For starting teacher salary to be that near the bottom, it’s discouraging.” The MSTA’s own research contradicts this low salary number!

MSTA collected the starting salary schedule of every school district in the state. It then calculated the average starting salary for each school district. In 2018-19, the starting minimum salary was $34,290. It hasn’t been as low as the DESE reported figure in over five years.

What’s more, the MSTA figure is undoubtedly a lower bound. The MSTA calculations weight each district evenly. Smaller school districts tend to have lower teacher salaries, but they hire fewer teachers. So, we can conclude the average is most likely higher than $34,290. (It’s worth noting that all of these salary figures do not include benefits like health or retirement. This means the economic benefit is quite a bit higher than the salary would indicate.)

So, what is the real starting teacher salary? Using DESE data containing teacher salaries for all Missouri teachers in 2017, I attempt to answer that question. First, I limit the data to those who are reported as first-year teachers in Missouri public schools with no experience in another state. Then, I remove any teacher who is not listed as full-time or is not making $25,000, the required minimum for a full-time teacher.

When I do this, the average starting teacher salary in Missouri is over $37,000. It is slightly higher when we consider the extra pay teachers get for engaging in additional duties, such as tutoring.

Should we really quibble about a few thousand dollars? Absolutely! We should demand accurate information from our policymakers, especially when those statistics are being used to drive policy discussions. We have already seen calls to raise the state minimum starting teacher salary. Interestingly, only three school districts start teachers out at the minimum, according to the MSTA report.

In 2017, just 39 teachers earned a salary of $25,000 and less than two percent of the total teacher workforce earned less than $30,000. Moreover, many of these “teachers” are not what we would consider regular classroom teachers. Of the teachers earning less than $30,000, at least 16 of them are classified as “in school suspension” teachers. Another 58 are listed as “Advisory/Homeroom.”

If you raised all these teachers up to $30,000, it would increase average pay in the state by about $30 a year in average salary. Importantly, it would place an inordinate financial burden on small, rural school districts. The end result of this blunt policy change would likely be teacher layoffs, increased class sizes, more four day school weeks, or the cutting of extra programs in these districts.

The debate about teacher pay is important, but this is the wrong way to go about it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If we are going to have important policy discussions, we should have that discussion honestly and with the correct facts.

The post Missouri’s Starting Teacher Salary Is Higher Than Previously Reported appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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Based on Steinhoff and Yoakum’s comments, I’d like to make three points:

Point #1: Pensions Take From Some to Reward Others

The generous teacher retirement benefits for those who stay in the system for their full career are made possible by the contributions of those who leave the system early. According to Yoakum, “The retirement system is designed to provide a career employee in Missouri schools with roughly the same standard of living they had.” The key phrase there is “career employee.” Workers who leave early face a severe financial penalty.

As McShane pointed out in the article (and as I’ve noted before on the Show-Me Institute blog), benefits from the teacher pension system do not exceed a teacher’s contributions until they have worked for 28 years. 28 years! As a report from the Urban Institute noted, 62% of Missouri teachers do not stay for that long. The majority of teachers are not benefiting from the pension system, but are instead subsidizing the benefits of others.

Point #2: Retirement Benefits are an Ineffective Way to Recruit Teachers

Yoakum contends that the pension system is helping recruit teachers to Missouri. This is a poplar refrain among pension supporters. At first glance, the argument makes sense—better benefits attract more people. The problem is that people, especially young people, typically don’t pay much attention to their retirement benefits. This is illustrated by the quote from Steinhoff, “It is the best kept secret even within the profession because, for most teachers, it doesn’t come on their radar until they’re teaching for about 25 years.” I fail to see how a well-kept secret helps recruit teachers.

As a National Bureau of Economic Research report notes, employees value current pay much more than they value deferred compensation into a pension system.  Thus, a better way to recruit and retain teachers might be to pay them more now, rather than promise them more later.

Point #3: Pensions Pull Some to Stay, Push Others Out

OK, maybe pensions aren’t the best way to recruit new workers, but they do help keep teachers in the system, right? As Yoakum said, “From the employer standpoint, it does provide golden handcuffs to a certain extent. When a teacher has accumulated a certain years of service, it’s very hard for them to leave. This helps our school districts retain those very good teachers.”

This “Golden Handcuffs” phenomenon is discussed by economists Robert Costrell and Michael Podgursky in an Education Next article with the same name (see their excellent illustration above). The yellow line is the value of Missouri’s teacher pension system, while the black line represents a smooth-accruing cash balance plan. This shows how teachers who leave early are worse off under the current system. As a result, Costrell and Podgursky agree with Yoakum that the back-loaded nature of PSRS pulls teachers to stay until full retirement—but at a cost. First, there is no indication that the “pull” is felt only by the “very good teachers” to whom Yoakum alluded. Indeed, there may be some teachers who are burnt out and want to retire, but feel compelled to stick it out until they reach full retirement. How is that good for kids? And after a teacher reaches their peak pension value, the system punishes them and pushes them out. Thus, beyond a point, the system acts as a disincentive for veteran teachers to stay.

We cannot accept the merits of defined-benefit pension systems simply because they provide a terrific benefit to a fraction of our teachers. Rather, we should consider whether the system is designed to provide fair retirement support for every teacher in Missouri. Clearly it is not. 

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Whatever it is called, Missouri wants to raise the taxes and fees on it. Not surprisingly, for those who follow this blog and know the real motivations behind occupational licensing and taxing, some current tattoo shop owners support the tax and fee increase. KOMU reports (emphasis added):

“Surprising to some, some artists think fees should go up because it will help get the people who do tattoos illegally out of the market. Dean Jones, managing owner at Living Canvas in Columbia, says the possible increase does not bother him at all.”

I love how they make a big deal in the story about shops that don’t give out after-care instructions for their “illegal” tattoos. It took me less than 10 seconds to find online all the after-care instructions you would want.

I am not opposed to all regulation of the tattoo industry. I think statewide licensing of individual artists is unnecessary, and many other tattoo regulations are absurd, but basic sanitary inspections by county health departments seems reasonable.

I have news for people who believe that a higher license fee will keep people from performing tattoo work illegally: Higher costs and increased regulation may mean that more people — not fewer — will start doing the work “illegally.”

The state should get out of the business of regulating tattoo artists, and leave public health issues to local health departments.

The post Tattoo You appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

My complaint is twofold. Firstly, it is difficult to be sure that public funds would be spent in the areas of greatest need. There is instead reason to believe that leaving money in the hands of the taxpayers will allow them to spend it on whatever medical treatment has the highest benefit/cost ratio for their particular time and place. Second, let’s not forget that public spending in particular areas tends to crowd out comparable private industry in those areas, even when that private area is charitable in nature. From the article:

Brown gets free therapy at the University of Missouri’s School of Health Professions from a program that runs on donations. Brown and his [fiancée] realize without it he would have no therapy at all.

Now, the government may have established incentives, such as tax breaks, to encourage this kind of behavior from the SHP — but this is plainly a privately funded project. Rather than encourage the government to tax/spend more on something that most people would agree benefits those in need, instead perhaps it would be worthwhile to encourage increased private donations to such programs, demanding no funds from already cash-starved public coffers. And, more importantly, let us celebrate the decency of the SHP and its donors for providing such a wonderful service to those in need.
For related reading from the Show-Me Institute, see Calvin Harris’ recent op-ed.

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Although we would have preferred the story to emphasize that our school rankings are based on the state’s own data, rather than our own interpretation, we are pleased nonetheless that Missouri parents now have access to tools for making informed public education decisions.

If you haven’t visited our Show-Me: Living website yet, be sure to check out our new school performance tools (see the banner above), as well as our Missouri tax estimator, which we released last month. And be sure to let us know if you have any questions or comments on how we can make these tools more useful to you.

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"He spends an hour a day in the ELL class, while that’s usually enough time, but because there are too many students in the class we feel he doesn’t have enough opportunities to speak up," Yun says.

Most parents, like the Kims, hire tutors to give their children extra speaking time, but communicating is just part of the challenge.

This is why we don’t need an English-language amendment to the state Constitution. Even short-term visitors want their kids to learn English. Foreign-born parents who are here to stay are even more adamant about the importance of English. The Pew Hispanic Center has found that 96 percent of foreign-born Hispanics consider "the goal of teaching English to the children of immigrant families" to be very important.

Immigrants aren’t trying to get the state to conduct business in foreign languages. They view interaction with Americans as a valuable opportunity to learn English.

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