Economy
post

Low Teacher Pay in New Mexico and The Growing K-12 Bureaucracy

05.14.2015
STUART, 2/21/02 - Michael Rutenberg, a Marine Science teacher at Martin County High School, protests with about 150 other teachers Thursday afternoon on the Roosevelt bridge. Martin County teachers are upset that the school district has not offered them the salary increases they asked for. Photo by David Lane ORG XMIT: ORG XMIT: MER0708101324423839

A recent report by New Mexico’s Legislative Finance Committee has found that teacher pay in our state is too low to keep good teachers. Interestingly, according to the NEA, New Mexico’s per-pupil spending on education is about average (25th according to the chart on p.54), but our teacher salaries are ranked 43rd in the nation (page 18).

What gives? For starters, New Mexico is known for having high capital spending when it comes to our public schools (7th-highest in the nation according to the chart on p. 58). Also, as data compiled by the Friedman Foundation and presented below by the Rio Grande Foundation shows, bureaucracy and administrative staffing levels have grown dramatically in recent years:

rgf_nm_student_staff

rgf_student_staff

Sen. John Arthur-Smith does make a good point in the original Albuquerque Journal article about how teacher pensions may be unsustainable (teacher pay is essentially back-loaded to retirement). This means seniority is valued over competence as young people are scared away from a 20+ year commitment in order to get their “return on investment.” Perhaps Smith would introduce legislation to transfer teachers (on a voluntary or mandatory basis) from defined benefit pensions to defined contribution 401K-style programs?

As seen in the map below from NCSL, this is an option that is in place in several other states (and is becoming increasingly-popular):

pension_map2