Industry News

On October 26, 2021, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (CRR) released its issue brief, What Do We Know About Public Teacher Compensation? The CRR study analyzes public teacher compensation to help determine whether current compensation levels are sufficient to recruit and retain high-quality teachers to promote better student outcomes.

The study utilizes more accurate estimates of benefit costs for public teachers including retirement benefits, health and retirement plan coverage as well as other benefits such as Social Security, supplemental pay and paid leave. The results indicate that public teachers earn about the same compensation as similar private sector workers.

The CRR cautions that, due to reductions in pension benefits for public teachers hired in the past decade, relative compensation is likely to decline over time. In addition, uncompetitive compensation may make it more challenging to recruit high-quality teachers, which may potentially result in worse outcomes for students.

The brief is available here.