Larger pay increases and better benefits could support teacher retention

RAND Corporation

Larger pay increases and better benefits could help keep K-12 teachers in the teacher workforce, finds a new, nationally representative RAND survey.  

 

U.S. teachers reported modest pay increases between the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years, only $2,000 on average and well below their desired increase of $16,000. Black teachers and teachers in states where collective bargaining is prohibited reported they received the smallest pay increases.  

 

“Teachers who received larger pay increases also said they were less likely to intend to leave the profession,” said Elizabeth D. Steiner, the lead author of the report lead author and a policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization.

 

Sixty-five percent of teachers nationally reported taking on extra work, such as coaching athletics or serving as department chair. However, one in four teachers nationally said they were not paid for their extra work. Black teachers were more likely than White teachers to report that they performed extra work for no pay. Teachers who were paid for extra work reported small earnings – about 4% of base pay.

 

Although benefits comprise a larger share of teachers’ total compensation package, on average, than similar working adults, working adults reported better access than teachers to benefits such as paid personal time off, paid parental leave, and tuition reimbursement. The largest difference was for paid parental leave. Only one-third of teachers reported having paid parental leave, compared to nearly half of similar working adults.

 

Additionally, for nearly all the employer-provided benefits researchers asked about, fewer teachers thought their benefits were adequate compared to similar working adults. Among teachers who had paid parental leave, only 46% thought it was adequate in comparison with 78% of similar working adults who had access to paid parental leave. As with pay, teachers who felt their benefits were adequate were less likely to say they intended to leave the teaching profession.

 

“Offering a broader set of benefits and improving the quality of those benefits could improve teachers’ perceptions of their pay and improve retention,” said Steiner. “We found teachers who had better perceptions of their benefits also had better perceptions of their pay.”

 

The RAND State of the American Teacher survey is a nationally representative, annual survey of K-12 public school teachers across the U.S. Teacher data is presented in comparison to a separate 2024 American Life Panel companion survey, a nationally representative survey of working adults.

 

The State of the American Teacher survey was supported by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.

 

Other authors of “Larger Pay Increases and Adequate Benefits Could Improve Teacher Retention: Findings from the 2024 State of the American Teacher Survey” are Ashley Woo and Sy Doan.

 

RAND Education and Labor provides objective research and analysis that improves social and economic well-being through education and workforce development. The division does research on early childhood through postsecondary education programs, workforce development, programs and policies affecting workers, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy and decision making.