News

Reflections on the the teacher shortage: how teachers are paid reinforces the problem

Perspectives is an opportunity for Fellows and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays. IPE/BC Fellows hold a range of views and interests relative to public education.

Reflections on the teacher shortage: how teachers are paid reinforces the problem.

By John Malcolmson

March 16, 2024

BC continues to struggle with efforts to improve class size and composition standards in our schools. Years ago, Canada’s Supreme Court opened the door to restoring protections in these areas after Gordon Campbell’s Liberals took an axe to negotiated provisions in teacher contracts.

BC is not unique in this regard as other jurisdictions – both in Canada and abroad – face similar challenges in finding and holding onto staff. However, what makes BC stand out is that it was Campbell’s legislative assault in the 2000s that dug the crater we find ourselves in. Its sheer depth complicates efforts to find a way out. That plus the fact that most efforts aimed at addressing recruitment and retention challenges for teachers – forgivable loans, locational incentives, dispersed learning opportunities, etc. – are not working the way we hoped they might.

This note focuses on the way we pay educators. Its basic argument is that how we pay teachers is anachronistic and needs to be changed. Why is this? A few reasons stand out.

  • The current system, developed many decades ago, assumes that new teachers require formative periods lasting up to 10 years to reach a point where they are fully qualified to do their work, and that it is appropriate to deny full pay until that point is reached.
  • The current system incentivizes the acquisition of university credentials, something which is no longer an issue as the latter are not currently in short supply.
  • The current system also embeds cultural biases regarding using these credentials to further stratify how teachers doing the same work are paid.

The current model makes sense if you believe that people in teaching positions don’t fully know what they’re doing for the first decade and this warrants the withholding of full pay. The approach is also a good one if you accept the idea that having five years of post-secondary education automatically makes you a better educator than someone with four but not as good as someone with six. The problem is that no one argues like this anymore because the arguments are not credible.  So why pay people differently on the basis of these approaches?

The bigger problem here comes down to the teacher increment ladder. Educators are underpaid for the nine to ten years it takes to reach full salary – the regular rate for the job. This encourages implementation of an extractivist approach to the use of educator labour. Extractivism is a concept developed by David Harvey, Veronica Gago, Nancy Fraser and others to describe power relationships which afford those in control the ability to confiscate or extract rising shares of value from their subordinates.[1]  It can apply to trading blocs, countries, regions or sectors of work.  In the case of K-12 education, it comes down to the people we rely on to run our public schools.

Young and inexperienced educators are placed in particularly challenging classroom environments for the early parts of their careers. Their teaching labour is exploited by virtue of substandard pay for this period. Their affective labour and emotional commitment to the work they perform is likewise exploited. Mental and emotional energy is extracted piecemeal by the demands of the job.

Replenishment of this energy is the responsibility of the individual. The system is tailor-made for frustration, resentment, feelings of isolation and failure, leading ultimately to burnout.

This translates directly to increased educator attrition and there is plenty of data out there that affirms this. Many young people entering the profession aren’t prepared for the twin pressures of dealing with the professional and emotional pressures of a new job while having to subsist on compressed pay levels for lengthy periods of time. Data from other jurisdictions shows that a rising percentage of teacher graduates elect not even to go into the public school system when graduating. Many young teachers also carry with them transferable skills which allow for the migration to other areas of work.  Less stress?  Better pay? Reduced feeling that your commitment to work is being used against you?  Hey, why not make that move?

Our public K-12 system relies implicitly on an extractivist dynamic to function with the limited financial resources it is afforded. For some time the model has not been sustainable.  What has made the problem critical is the pandemic-induced breakdowns of supply chains fueling price inflation. The influx of cash by governments to stall the slide into depression did work as intended but at the cost of building asset bubbles in areas like real estate. The knock-on effect has been deepened financialization of housing assets whether for purchase or for rent.  It used to be relatively straightforward to find a place to live within your means.  Not anymore. Not for young educators nor anyone else.  And not just in the Lower Mainland or South Island.

What to do?

We need to look at paying and supporting educators differently because the current model is dysfunctional.  Specifically,

  • Phase out the current increment system. Most other occupations, professions included, will have increments recognizing the movement to maximum career proficiency that last three or four years at most.  Why is teacher pay stuck at nine or ten years?
  • Raise the entry-level wage/salary so that it no more than 10% lower that the maximum rate. Anything more perpetuates financial and emotional extractivism and frustrates efforts to build system sustainability.
  • Give a serious look at the teacher qualification system that rewards people for academic degrees. If this doesn’t automatically make for better educators then why structure rewards as if it does? Perhaps we might build in pay recognition for other professional development activities not so closely aligned with acquiring formal academic qualifications?
  • Develop an apprenticeship model drawing on international examples that financially rewards experienced educators for mentoring and supporting their junior colleagues through the difficult early years of a career. This isn’t new or hugely innovative – the trades have been doing this for decades and, while they face their own recruitment issues, they are typically not ones related to burning out new people struggling to get a foothold on compressed incomes.

It’s time to think “outside the box” and look for innovative ideas to deal with a problem that is likely only to get worse. We can all support the call for more funding resources for public education but there is also a need to look at practical options for making better use of whatever resources are provided to support public schooling.

[1] David Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism (2019), Veronica Gago, Feminist International: How to Change Everything (2020), and Nancy Fraser, Cannibal Capitalism (2022).

 



Sidebar: Comparing teacher’s and nurse’s pay

How does teacher pay compare with that provided another female-dominated profession in BC’s public sector – nurses?

In 2023 a starting Category 5 Vancouver teacher (the most common designation) can expect to earn $65,176 for 10 months of annual employment. It takes that teacher 10 years to reach salary maximum and, when she gets there, she can expect to make $96,959 at current rates.  At almost 49%, the gap between these levels is high, so much so the new teacher starts off making only about 2/3 the full rate.

A starting Licensed Practice Nurse 1 in BC Health care makes $62,184 out of the gate (12-month employment) and maxes out 10 years later at $78,293 which is significantly lower than the teacher.

However…

The more appropriate comparison would be with a Registered Nurse 3 (the most commonly paid nursing rate). An RN3 starts at $78,408 and reaches maximum after 10 years at $105,846. Both rates are considerably higher than those afforded Vancouver teachers.  And the gap separating min and max rates here is about 35%, considerably lower than teachers.

LPNs and RNs also benefit from long-term “Recognition Pay” if they stick it out in their jobs over the long haul.  In the case of an RN3, this can add up to $6,720 more at the top end of the pay scale.

Both teachers and nurses face serious recruitment and attrition challenges. The pay system for nurses isn’t perfect but it is better suited to addressing these challenges than that used with teachers.

What’s needed is a focus on the long and drawn-out increment path for both groups.



John D. Malcolmson, Ph.D, is an IPE/BC board member and a consulting sociologist providing research advice to unions on matters relating to compensation.

 

 

 

BC Budget 2024: What is in store for public schools and the K-12 system as a whole?

The budgetary approach favoured by the current government centres on an explicit targeting of new monies to a small set of defined needs like contract costs and monies for more students. Yet our schools are complex and expansive institutions that face inflationary pressure affecting not just wages and salaries but benefit costs, and those related to learning materials, utilities, specialized services, professional development, recruitment, transportation, IT and a host of other factors. While the annual Funding Allocation System is intended to capture these demands when budgetary allocations are set, there has not been a clear or consistent recognition of budgetary pressures in these areas and how they impinge upon school system mandates in the instructional arena.

Read our analysis of the education funding in Budget 2024 here.

Upcoming Forum and AGM

The Institute for Public Education/BC will be holding a forum on the teacher shortage in conjunction with its AGM. We’d be very pleased to see you there. Please don’t hesitate to share this information to others interested in quality, inclusive, accessible public education.

Keynote address: Teacher Shortage, Teacher Supply, Teacher Demand, or Teacher Employment, ensuring access to high quality teachers for BC students.

We’re delighted to have Dr. Dan Laitsch, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University,  as our keynote speaker. Dan is a former IPE/BC Board member and Chair of IPE/BC and has been the president of the Confederation of University Faculty Associations, British Columbia, a long serving Director on the SFU Faculty Association (SFUFA) and former Treasurer and President of the association. A researcher with the SFU Centre for the Study of Educational Leadership and Policy, his primary teaching area is Educational Leadership. He co-edits the open access peer reviewed International Journal of Policy and Leadership (www.ijepl.org ) and is active in the American Educational Research Association SIG on Research Use. Dr. Laitsch’s research examines the use and misuse of research in policy and practice; the impact of neoliberal policies on educational systems; and the role of motivation within organizational and policy change efforts

Date: March 7, 2024

Time: 7:00 to 9:00 pm

Location: Segal Building, 500 Granville Street, Vancouver   

See below for directions to the venue and instructions on how to participate online if you’re not able to attend in person.

Programme

The meeting will begin with a territorial acknowledgement and reflection, followed by the keynote address. Following a short break for informal conversations, the AGM, with the presentation of our annual report, discussion of current initiatives, and appointment of directors will take place.

Directions to the venue

The Segal Centre, at 500 Granville Street, is readily accessible by bus, Canada Line and Skytrain. It is just two blocks from Waterfront Station.

If you’re travelling by car, two of the closest parking lots are the Imperial Parking garage at 450 West Cordova St and the Diamond Parking garage at 443 Seymour St..

Participating online

If you’re not able to attend in person but want to join in online, please email us at info@publicedbc.ca and we’ll be happy to send you the link.

IPE/BC brief to federal budget consultations calls for action on universal school food program

The Institute for Public Education/ BC has called on the federal government to place an urgent priority on the implementation of a national, universal school food program in the upcoming budget. In a brief submitted to the federal pre-budget consultation, we speak to the importance of such a program in helping to address food insecurity and poverty throughout the country. Additionally, we explain the positive impact of a universal program on student learning, well-being, health and development, and the educational opportunities it would provide for all school-aged children and youth. Read the full brief submitted to the 2024 budget consultation here. 

CCPA Policy Note focused on Hopes and Dreams for BC’s Public Schools

Thank you very much to the CCPA for  the January 11th Policy Note on  IPE/BC’s Hopes and Dreams project and for inviting readers to participate. We know there are many significant problems that need addressing in our public schools- teacher shortage, inadequate support for students with diverse learning needs, and underfunding, to name a few. At the same time, we think that it’s important to talk about our aspirations for our education system, students and learning in BC and to help inform policy through the voices of British Columbians. What are your hopes and dreams for public education in BC?  Check out the links in this article to join in the conversation.

Hopes and Dreams Project Featured on Radio CFRO

IPE/BC’s community engagement project, Hopes and Dreams for Public Education in BC, was featured on Radio CFRO, Vancouver’s Cooperative Radio, on December 16th. Bárbara Silva, IPE/BC Board member, spoke with Jane Williams on Redeye about the project and the ways that IPE/BC is reaching out to British Columbians and inviting them to share their perspectives. Thank you very much to Coop Radio for this interview and for inviting listeners to participate.
We hope you’ll take a few minutes to listen to the segment (scroll down to December 16th) and, of course, we also hope you’ll join with others in BC and participate by sending in your thoughts. 

On September 30 and throughout the year

On September 30th and throughout the year, we commit to learning, reflecting, and teaching about the genocidal treatment of Indigenous Peoples in Canada, and to taking meaningful steps to reconciliation. We know that the education is key to exposing the brutal inhumane treatment of Indigenous children, families, and peoples across the country and to ensuring every child is treated with respect and given the support and encouragement they deserve. Indigenous children need to see their culture, history, and ways of knowing embraced in our public school system, and to know that they are truly welcomed, and their strengths are celebrated. It is up to all of us in the education community to ensure this is the case.

We applaud the steps taken to date in our public schools and, at the same time, know that there is much more to do. As Justice Sinclair so aptly said, “Education got us into this mess and education will get us out.”

National Truth and Reconciliation Day is an opportune time to re-read the TRC Calls to Action, and to individually and collectively make plans to ensure they are implemented.  Decolonizing our work, our daily lives and our education system is a critical imperative- one which we all owe to the children and youth in our schools and communities. The message, “Every child matters” calls upon us to ensure this is truly the case for Indigenous children. Fortunately, there are many excellent resources to help us do the necessary learning and to act on our commitments. Just a few of the many available are included below. We know there are many more excellent resources for acting on reconciliation in our schools and communities and would welcome you sharing those with us.

National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation -Truth and Reconciliation Week

4 Canoes – Indigenous Created Resources for the Classroom

Spirit Bear’s Guide to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Calls to Action

Featured Resources in Aboriginal Education

Never Stop Learning- Truth and Reconciliation and Education Resources

Indian Residential Schools and Reconciliation Resources

The Community School Model- Just Imagine!

Perspectives is an opportunity for Fellows and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays. IPE/BC Fellows hold a range of views and interests relative to public education.

The Community School Model- Just Imagine!

By David Chudnovsky

August 29, 2023

Imagine a small elementary school in a low income suburban community. The teachers are a mix of veterans and younger folks. It’s a really tough job as many of the students come to school hungry and have difficult home lives, but the teachers are enthusiastic and committed. Several of them have been teaching there for almost 30 years. They’ve all thought of looking for easier placements, but they can’t bring themselves to leave these kids.

There’s an evening program for adults – with courses in everything from belly dancing to introductory business skills to gymnastics – and there’s a ceramics studio with a kiln and slip and glazes that’s used by the kids during the day and adults at night.

Students work with a community curriculum developed by the teachers that reflects the experience of residents and neighbours.

Adult Basic Education classes are taught in a couple of empty classrooms during the day and in the kids’ classrooms in the evening – from basic literacy for people who can’t read or write to high school equivalency GED prep sessions. For more than 30 hours a week dozens of adults share the school with the elementary students.

A group of neighbourhood women meet in the school to organize a childcare centre and it’s just about to open in the community centre down the street.

A Community Newspaper is published four times a year through the school.

There’s a seniors group that meets monthly and organizes outings, and also arranges for older neighbours to volunteer in classrooms and interact with the elementary students.

In a portable in the parking lot behind the school is a re-entry program for teenagers who’ve been out of school for at least 6 months. The school recruits those students through local social service agencies, high school counselors and the media.

During the summer, a day camp runs using the school building and its facilities.

There’s a lunch program. Volunteers from the neighbourhood come into the school to make sandwiches or hot dogs – but it’s hard to get the money to make the program permanent.

There’s a community program run out of the school called Shape Up. A couple of the Shape Up staff will help you renovate your house, clean out your garage, landscape your backyard or do any one of hundreds of home improvement projects that keep getting put off. But residents have to contribute. Some help with the actual work of the project at their home. Some store the tools. Some make lunch and dinner for the workers. One guy sharpens and repairs the tools.

There’s an annual fundraising fair at the school, but it has to be scheduled for social assistance cheque week. If it isn’t, there’s no money to raise.  But when it is, the whole neighbourhood participates, they have a great time, and some funds are raised to support the programs.

The School Board employs a teacher to organize and facilitate all of this, plus a night school monitor (paid for out of the fees for the night school courses), and a part time secretary.  However, the real leadership is provided by a Community Board made up of neighbourhood folks who advise and decide on the various programs, advertise, and explain what’s going on at the school to their neighbours, and advocate to the School Board and other governments and agencies for the various programs and activities at the school. Some of them are parents of kids at the school. Some of them aren’t.

Sound good? A bit too good to be true? Pie in the sky? Not at all. That program – with a lot more elements – existed and flourished in a North Surrey neighbourhood for decades. I was lucky enough to be the Community School Coordinator – the teacher hired by the Board to run the Community School Program for close to ten years, and while it was a hard job, it was enormously exciting.

Neighbourhoods with Community Schools knew, and still know, that they are certainly cost effective, but more important, they build cooperation, educational and social success, and resilience.

The Community School model – with different characteristics in communities with different needs – came to an end in Surrey in the late 1980’s as a result of yet another budget crisis.  But it still exists in some jurisdictions.

What a wonderful experience –  using school resources and space to meet community needs. Those elementary school students learned so much from the range of people who themselves benefited from the school’s programs. The kids learned they were part of a community. They learned they could build and strengthen their neighborhood. They learned that seniors, and adults learning to read and write, and the fellow who lived down the street and sharpened tools, were all important parts of their lives. They learned what it means to be a citizen.

While you’re thinking about what was, imagine what could be. What if we added a Community Health Clinic and a Social Services Office to that Community School? What if the School Board meetings were held in each Community School once a year? What if the local First Nations were part of and  the programs at the School?

What if School Boards and the Province really understood the value of schools as part of the wider community, understood schools as the building blocks of stronger and more resilient communities? Imagine a renaissance of Community Schools across BC.

Just imagine.

David Chudnovsky worked in nursery, elementary and secondary schools and at the university level in England, Ontario and BC during his 35-year teaching career.  He is a past-president of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation and was an elected Member of the Legislative Assembly in British Columbia Legislature from 2005-2009.  David is co-author of the Charter for Public Education.

 

 

IPE/BC Submission to the Budget 2024 Consultation

The IPE/BC submission to the Budget 2024 Consultation process is titled, Building Capacity for BC’s Future, and is focused on the following three priorities:

  • addressing the serious teacher shortage that is putting the quality of public education at risk,
  • acting on the need to revise the system for capital planning and building in order to ensure a forward-looking approach, and
  • meeting the need for increased funding for post-secondary education.

You can read the full submission including our recommendations and rationale here.

 

Survey Results Very Worrisome

June 8, 2023

We know that a high quality, accessible and inclusive public education system is essential to a strong democracy. We also know that teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions. A recent report shines a light on the serious issues that need to be addressed so that our valuable public education system can continue to live up to the important role it plays in our society.

As you’ll see from this report on the BCTF’s recent member survey, the pressures on teachers are becoming untenable. We can only expect that  BC’s critical teacher shortage will get worse if the conditions are not improved. Increasing workload, inability to secure the support their students need, staffing shortages, and oversized classes are among the top factors having a worrying impact on the physical and mental health of teachers. Teachers considering leaving the profession within the next two years pointed to  inadequate working conditions, lack of support for students with diverse needs, stress, and burnout as key reasons. They identified not being able to get the necessary support for students who need it as the key impact of the staffing shortages.

It’s well worth taking the time to read the full report.  As you’ll see, the situation calls for immediate, concerted government attention.

2023 BCTF Member Survey Summary Report