Comparing Apples For Teachers To Apples For Pies | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Rick Henderson, who is managing editor for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

    RALEIGH  -  In an appearance Wednesday on News 14 Carolina's "Capital Tonight," North Carolina Association of Educators lobbyist Brian Lewis argued that salaries for entry-level teachers in the state were inadequate. At $30,800, newly hired teachers in North Carolina are paid less than fast-food managers, Lewis said.

    That may seem like an effective sound bite if you're a flack for the teachers union, which is furious (as it often is) because the General Assembly did not provide a raise in the new budget.

    But comparing salaries among different occupations is more than cherry-picking statistics to satisfy a political agenda. Moreover, it's dishonest to compare salaries among jobs that bear little similarity in their demands on employees, let alone their qualifications. The salary structure for K-12 teachers in traditional public schools is antiquated and can be inadequate, especially for teachers early in their careers. But if Lewis' goal was to embarrass legislative leaders into increasing teacher pay, he didn't do his homework.

    Lewis didn't say where he found the compensation figure for fast-food managers, but in its most recent data on North Carolina, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average annual wage in the major occupational group 35-1012, "first line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers" - which includes shift managers in fast-food restaurants - is $30,870, or about $1.30 a week more than a teacher would make over a 12-month period.

    It's a poor comparison, if that's the figure Lewis is using. It conflates salaries for first- and second-year teachers (see page 2 of the PDF) with the average salary of first-line supervisors at any time in their careers, whether they've been managing employees for six months or 16 years.

    A more accurate measure would be to compare the average annual compensation of all teachers. BLS again offers the data. The average North Carolina elementary school teacher not in special education (occupational group 25-2021) earned $44,140; middle school teachers not in special education or career/technical education (25-2022) earned on average $42,060; high school teachers not in special or career/technical education (25-2031) earned $44,400.

    Compared with first-line food-prep supervisors, teachers are doing pretty well. Once you move up the food chain, as it were, food-service pay gets better. Food service managers, a group that includes first-line supervisors along with head chefs and higher-level bosses, average $48,130 a year. A lobbyist for teachers may think this unfair. But, as the BLS notes, "Food service managers often work long hours - 12 to 15 per day, 50 or more per week - and sometimes seven days a week. The job can be hectic, and dealing with unhappy customers can be stressful."

    Tell me about it. Not long after I got out of college, for a little less than a year, two work colleagues and I became business partners, opening some of the first franchise outlets of the Chapel Hill-based Pizza Transit Authority delivery restaurants. We opened two new locations in Charlotte and took over two existing operations near Guilford College in Greensboro and near N.C. State University here in Raleigh.

    In my typical morning, I would arrive at the store around 8 to receive food deliveries from vendors and then prepare veggies, dough, and sauce for the day. We opened at 4:30 p.m. for a service period that lasted until 1 a.m. weeknights and 2 a.m. weekends. On a good night, my crew and I had the food stored and the shop cleaned within an hour of closing. Then it was back the next morning around 8 to start it all again.

    The grind was tough, and my partners and I went into business with no cash reserves to withstand the 1981-82 recession. So within a year, we barely could make payroll and lost the franchises and our business. From my experience, anyone who thinks food service is easy or not a challenge to your body, mind, or patience, never has done it.

    Which brings up another hole in Lewis' logic. The vast majority of fast-food managers work in the private sector, where the free market sets compensation for that occupation and thousands of others. Fast-food managers make no more or less than their employers are willing to pay them based on the level of customer service they provide, the quality of food they serve, and the prices restaurants can charge consumers. A manager who doesn't produce will lose his job.

    By contrast, most teachers work in public schools that are funded by tax dollars. Their compensation is set in a political market by the General Assembly, and the pay scales reward seniority over excellence. A more sensible system might provide higher pay for early-career teachers (something the NCAE would prefer) but reward merit and not treat all teachers with equal experience and credentials the same (something the NCAE loathes).

    This session, lawmakers got rid of teacher tenure, establishing a system that eventually would require teachers to prove their mettle every year - just as fast-food managers and other private-sector employees must do every day. The NCAE hates that.

    You can respect teachers without denigrating people who do other honorable work. Too bad the leaders of the state's teachers union seek to pit one group of employees against others.