This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A new Utah Foundation study finds that the salaries of Utah public school teachers are not at the bottom among neighboring states. That's good news. Because Utah is often alone in the cellar when it comes to the states' investment in education.
However, the researchers would have done well to make broader comparisons in order to paint a complete picture.
It makes sense to compare education issues among states that are similar, and geographical proximity tends to produce similarities. Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming were used in the study.
Narrowing the comparison in a similar way, the foundation found a year ago that when it compared Utah to states with similar levels of poverty, percentages of college-educated parents and minorities, Utah test scores were often the lowest. The Beehive State ranked considerably lower in test scores in math, reading and science by fourth- and eighth-graders in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2005 and 2009.
So a comparison among Mountain West states makes more sense than comparing Utah to Vermont, for example.
The research focused the comparison in another way. The report compares salary levels of teachers with similar education and experience levels, rather than average salaries. Utah teachers place near the middle for most categories of education and experience. However, Utah's average is low, 49th in the nation.
That is because Utah has many young, inexperienced teachers, compared to nearby states, and beginning salaries are the lowest. So, statistically, Utah teachers are not the most underpaid of the group, though they're far from the top. But it would have been interesting if the foundation had compared the type of work done by teachers in the same grades in Utah and in neighboring states.
Do teachers in Wyoming or Colorado or Idaho work in similar conditions? Do they face the challenges of the largest class sizes anywhere in the country? Do their states' investment in education — the money schools have to spend on everything from counselors and teacher aides to paper, crayons and textbooks — compare with Utah's lowest per-pupil investment in the country?
Idaho is the next-lowest among the states in per-pupil spending, but even it is ahead of Utah by more than $1,000 per student. The national average is twice Utah's expenditure. Given their challenges, it's not surprising that Utah teachers are generally more inexperienced. Many don't stay long enough to reach higher salary levels.
So much is expected of Utah teachers, they should be among the highest-paid. By any measure, they are not.