James Carville earned superstardom in the 1992 presidential campaign. His guidance to an upstart from Arkansas was simple and powerful. "It's the economy, stupid!" was his way of cutting through the noise and establishing focus on what he believed was the most important issue to the American voters. Carville's sage advice ushered the Clinton era to decades of prominence in American politics.
The politicization of American public education is a reflection of our national landscape. Partisans frame issue according to their interests. Headlines such as Chalkbeat's March 2023's "Teacher turnover hits new highs across the U.S." trade upon expectations that American policy on public education must be yielding results so horrible that we risk attracting quality teaching professionals.
At Michigan Benchmark we aim to deliver non-partisan perspective on issues relevant to public education in our state. Let's take a closer look at the relevant data and we let our readers reach their own conclusion on these topics:
Does Michigan have a teacher turnover problem?
On the issue most relevant to teacher retention—salary and compensation—what have been the recent trends in Michigan?
If compensation concerns are contributing to teacher turnover, what can be done about it? Does the state have the financial capacity to corrects it?
Let's get to the data. Take a look at the five graphs in the slider below and we finish with some commentary.
Slide 1: Five Year Teacher Retention Trend
Here we try to answer, "Does Michigan have a teacher turnover problem?" To start, not all teacher career movements measure teachers leaving the profession. That's called Attrition; the inverse is Retention, which is the percentage who remain as Michigan public school teachers from one year to the next. Slide 1 shows the Retention percentage of Michigan public school teachers for the last five years. Despite a moderate drop in pandemic-influenced 2021, the retention rate has remained at about 92%. When teachers leave one Michigan public school to teach for another Michigan public school, this is called Mobility, and mobility is increasing. In 2017 in Michigan, 81% of teachers remained within the same district. In 2021, this figure dropped to 77% indicating that teacher Mobility (as opposed to Attrition) is rising. This tracks with an EdWeek publication suggesting that on average, 5% to 7% of teachers resign or retire annually. Our state may be running a little higher than that, but a crisis? It doesn't seem so. Notice, in that same EdWeek article, that "59 percent of teachers told Education Week they would be more likely to remain in the profession if they had salary increases that exceed the increase in the cost of living." We cover that in Slide 2, but for now the first lesson is that Attrition and Mobility are very different measures. In Michigan, Retention remains very high and Mobility is increasing.
Slide 2: Michigan Teacher Salaries Losing Race with Inflation
The EdWeek data suggests that teachers would be less Mobile if salaries kept pace with inflation. Slide 2 shows us that Michigan's traditional public schools are failing—miserably—in this regard. Does the article title make more sense now? In real (inflation-adjusted) dollars, teacher salaries are 11% lower than they were in 2012. Unsurprisingly, teachers are more willing to move districts in order to better their salary. In Slide 3 we take on the question: Are Michigan teacher salaries failing to keep up with inflation because the local districts can't afford the raises? Hold that question (answered in Slide 4).
Slide 3: Michigan Teacher Real Compensation Change by District Size
Here we explore whether the race against inflation is influenced by district size. The short answer? Tough to say. Class B is almost literally in a class by itself and in this case is inclusive of the Detroit Community School District which experienced enormous upheaval in this ten-year stretch. But Class E, G, and I districts have fared far worse than most of their peers. Does it need to be this bad for them? Do these districts lack the financial capacity to increase compensation at a rate closer to the Consumer Price Index? The short answer is that they DO have the money to fix this as you will see in Slide 4.
Slide 4: Ten Year Fund Equity Growth by District Size
This is literally and figuratively "The Money Slide." With the exception of the largest (Class B) districts, nearly every other category has doubled their General Fund equity (Rainy Day savings) over the last ten years, which coincides with the period of time when salaries failed to keep pace with inflation. The money is already there with no change of policy in Lansing. Returning 2022 average teacher salaries to their 2012 inflation-adjusted levels would require an investment of $487 million. Do the schools already have this? Considering the aggregate traditional public school fund equity totaled $3.2 billion at the end of 2022, investing $487 million (which is 15% of the aggregate savings) the LEAs would still have $2.7 billion in rainy day savings. This equates to a fund equity percentage of 18%, which meets the Michigan Association of School Boards (MASB) and Michigan Association of Secondary School Administrators (MASSA) targets. In short, the capacity is there.
Slide 5: 2022 Ending General Fund Equity by District Enrollment
Slide 5 really needs to be interpreted in relation to Slide 2. Why? Because Slide 2 tells us that the districts where teacher pay is relatively the lowest in the state (in relation to all LEA school district teachers) are the smaller (lower enrollment) ones—and these are the very same districts that have the higher fund equity levels. This is a peanut butter and chocolate moment. The districts that are in the most need of increasing teacher salaries are also those that have the greatest capacity to level up salaries.
So what now?
The answer will vary from district to district and to help users determine where their district stands on key measures like fund equity and average teacher salary, users can access Michigan Benchmarks Community Data Center to explore on their own.
For districts that have higher than necessary fund equity levels and lower than average teacher salaries, the collective bargaining unit teacher salary schedule ought to be reviewed. Ideally districts should be tracking teacher attrition data and cross referencing it with exit interviews to inform potential changes that could enhance the learning environment for student and staff alike.
Michigan Benchmark can help. Our core service offering is our flagship "Michigan Benchmark Report." This custom created report contains not only a wide variety of useful data, most of which spans back over a decade, but also delivers custom generated text narrative analysis of the data, its trends, and implication for action. Michigan Benchmark paid subscribers, typically meaning the Board of Education and the central administration, receive both digital and hardbound access to their Report, an indispensable assets that trustees bring with them to all meetings. Contact us today to learn how we can help.