TABLE I.-Teachers' salaries in comparison with other items of total school expenditures in certain cities having under 10.000 inhabitants, 1913-14. MAXIMUM AND MINIMUM SALARIES. The interpretative material in the present report involves the use of the median, upper, and lower quartiles for purposes of salary comparisons; maxima and minima; and especially the use of frequency tables. Some attempt has been made (Part III, p. 87) to explain the significance of these devices in salary investigations. With regard to the maximum and minimum, much care needs to be exercised to see that the figure given is a real maximum or minimum salary. The maximum reported is apt to be that of a grammarschool principal,' and the minimum often a training-school girl in practice work; there is little uniformity in reporting these items. Some of the instances are relatively simple; others are complicated. The comparatively simple case of the building principal, who may be a principal in fact, shades off into the puzzling case of the "teacher in charge," who may teach all or part of the time. The intricacies involved in making just comparisons are clearly stated by Supt. G. J. Borst, of Danbury, Conn.: We pay $300 to women principals of small buildings and $760 to women whom we call "teachers in charge" of two or three room buildings. For a regular grade teacher who has no executive work or responsibility we pay $720 as a maximum. The city has a regular salary schedule which has been in effect Rome four or five years. Before that time the salaries of the grade teachers were much lower. I have given this question of salary considerable study and I feel sure from my study that we are paying above the average for Connecticut, if you can get all the facts clearly stated as I have given them for Danbury. There are some neighboring cities, for example, which have a maximum of $700, one or two $750, and only one or two $800, but some of these grant an extra salary or bonus for work done outside. For example, in one of the neighboring cities the maximum salary is $750, but if a teacher will do extension work in Columbia and keep going she can get an extra salary or bonus for improving herself. This may be continued until she can get $100 more than she otherwise would. The practice is, of course, very praiseworthy in itself, but all teachers can not do this work, and it is not supposed that all teachers will do it, and I think it hardly fair to quote it as a maximum for elementary teachers without some sort of explanation. With regard to the minimum figure the abnormally low figure is often found to be the salary of a temporary teacher, a substitute, an assistant, a training-school girl in practice work, or a peculiarly exceptional case. In 1913 Cleveland, Ohio, reported $203 as a minimum, because Nottingham, a suburb, had just been annexed to the city system. At the present time the Cleveland minimum is $500. Any comparison based on an apparent fluctuation of from $203 to $500 would be erroneous as far as actual city conditions are concerned, however well it might show the striking inequalities that persist in the payment of teachers as between city and country, or even city and suburb. There are many such cases. 1 This point was carefully considered in the 1905 report (p. 13): “As to the teachers and principals in elementary schools the case is much more complex. In several of the large cities a principal (sometimes called a supervising principal) has charge of a group of schools in a district, and an assistant or vice principal has charge of each building so far as discipline is concerned, but with no supervisory duties in regard to in-truction. In other cities assistant superintendents may perform duties like the supervising principals above, and in many cities the principal has exactly the duties and responsibilities of the vice principals just referred to. In Washington, for example, principals of elementary schools teach a class and have nothing to do with the supervision of the instruction of other teachers. Not infrequently, and usually in the smaller cities, teachers in one of the higher grades serve also as principals, and the salaries of principals of the smaller buildings are less than the maximum paid teachers. The line between teachers and principal is not always distinct. When we undertake a comparison of city with city we find, just as in the case of high schools, that differences in methods of organization and supervision may require twice as many principals in one city as in another with the same number of teachers." Frequently conditions quite defy comparison. Supt. Lawton B. Evans, Augusta, Ga., in explaining what appeared to be an abnormal change in the minimum salary reported for his city in different years, states his case as follows: We have all sorts of minimum salaries, depending entirely upon the contract for the year and the school to be taught. For instance I have one contract now with a young lady who is teaching 12 children three hours a day and for that service is willing to accept $15 a month. This is the least salary we are now paying anybody, and it is an exceptional case. I have a few negroes in remote districts teaching a five-months' school for $25 a month, or $125 a year. I have assistant kindergarten teachers who are partly in training who get $240 a year. As a matter of fact we have no definite schedule and never have had. We are paying according to the needs of the school and the ability of the individual, and it varies in every locality and in every school. It is possibly true that our minimum wage was $289, and another year was $248, and for this year it might be a totally different figure. We open all sorts of schools in all sorts of places and pay for all kinds of service. In southern cities the minimum reported may be for white teachers or it may be for colored. No fair comparison between any two cities can be made unless it is clear that both are reporting on the same. basis. Supt. Arthur F. Hannan, of Selma, Ala., in explaining the variation in the minimum reported for his city, writes: Prior to the year 1909-10, teachers were employed on a basis of eight calendar months. Colored teachers were paid straight salaries of $35 and $40 a month for eight calendar months without regard to experience, efficiency, certification, or length of service in the local schools. White teachers were paid salaries ranging from $560 to $800 for work in the elementary schools and $8 10 for work in the high school. Since the year 1909-10, white teachers have been employed on a basis of nine scholastic months on salaries ranging from $540 to $900 for work in elementary schools and from $810 to $1,600 in the high school. However, in the elementary schools, salaries do not go over $675 except for seventh grade and for principals who devote a part of their time to teaching. The maximum salary is attainable in five years, or less, in case of special efficiency on the part of the teacher. Also in employing experienced teachers we fix the salary at such place in the schedule as seems wise and just. The small decrease in the minimum salary ($271) paid to colored teachers was made in the year 1909-10, when teachers were paid on the basis of nine scholastic months for the first time. More recently, colored teachers have been put under schedule ranging from $270 to $450 according to training, experience, length of service in the local schools, and general fitness for the work. To sum up, while the minimum salary both for colored teachers and for white teachers is somewhat smaller than in the years prior to 1908, the maximum salaries are materially larger and the teachers receiving salaries between the minimum and maximum are better paid, much better paid, than formerly. METHODS IN SALARY CAMPAIGNS. By what legitimate methods may teachers' salaries be raised? The question has been frequently asked, and frequently well answered, notably in meetings of the National Education Association. It is unfortunate that so few of the plans for practical accomplishment in this field are generally known. One of the best of these was set forth by Supt. John W. Carr, of Bayonne, N. J., at the St. Paul meeting of the National Education Association, July, 1914. There are at least five specific methods of procedure, according to Supt. Carr: 1. Keep down other expenses, so that there may be funds for increasing teachers' salaries. In making up the school budget, it usually happens that everything else is provided for before any provision is made for increasing teachers' salaries. Let us keep down the "miscellaneous expenses" and we shall have more money for teachers' salaries. 2. Standardize expenses, and in many localities there will be sufficient funds to pay reasonable salaries to teachers without increasing the burden of taxation to all. In a small city, the amount expended for books and educational supplies exceeded $17,000 per year. A careful estimate of the supplies actually needed was made and money appropriated accordingly. The result was that, although the attendance had increased more than 1,000, yet the annual decrease in expenditures for supplies was more than $2.000. By many small savings, the amount available for teachers' salaries may be materially increased. 3. Utilize the various teachers' organizations for the study of tax laws and the laws and practices for collecting and distributing school funds. Appoint active executive committees whose duties it shall be to see to it that the funds which are voted are really available for school purposes. In many localities if the tax dodgers and deadheads were made to pay up, there would be adequate funds for teachers' salaries. 4. Organize and maintain educational publicity committees-local, State, and National. The people want to know what the great body of teachers really need in the way of support in order that they, the teachers, may do their work most effectively. In most communities that is all that is required to secure the necessary legislation to provide minimum salary laws, permanent tenure, and adequate pensions. 5. Lastly, let us go to our homes, formulate a reasonable salary schedule for the particular locality in which we live, and then see if we can not get it adopted. Let teachers agree among themselves on a schedule which is reasonable, and in most communities it will be adopted.1 The point Supt. Carr makes in paragraph 4 of his program is of special importance. Too much emphasis can not be placed upon the fact that, once accurate data have been compiled, the salary campaign resolves itself into a campaign of publicity. It is frequently found to have been a safe assumption that the real reason for continued low salaries was lack of knowledge on the part of the public as to how low salaries really were. Publicity is urgent. In this connection the words of Payson Smith are as applicable as they were in 1906. Speaking of the 1905 salaries report, he said: If these reports are to be stored away on shelves to collect dust and to grow stale, or if they are to be reserved merely for the reading of teachers, they may as well not have been written. The important thing is to get the facts before the people. * * * This National report should be followed with State reports, wherever these have not already been made. But even this will not be enough. Every local community must do its own work. When reports are ready local communities should see to it that the local press, members of school boards, and town and city councils are provided with articles based on the reports. State reports and local committees may perhaps best be arranged at the direction of the State teachers' associations. Every Addresses and Proceedings, St. Paul, 1914, p. 92. John W. Carr, 1 National Education Association. superintendent, Bayonne, N. J. * Journal of Education, 64:214, 1906. county institute and local teachers' meeting should provide place for the discussion of this question. Your city or town teachers' association may properly have a committee on economic advancement as a course of study. And further, where there is an association of citizens, a grange, a civic club, a parents' association, let this topic be presented. The second great work of spreading the facts is as highly important as the first great work of getting them, and it is a work in which we may all participate. II. STATISTICS OF SALARIES FOR 1914-15. Little actual change in teachers' salaries between 1912-13 and 1914-15 has taken place. Although the committee on teachers' salaries and cost of living, through the Bureau of Education, collected again the salaries for all city school systems, it seemed necessary only to print those not previously published. This section of the report therefore gives actual salaries for superintendents, high-school teachers and principals, and elementary teachers and principals in 713 of the 1,079 cities having between 2,500 and 5,000 population. This information is given in Table 1. It is not yet possible to collect salary statistics for rural school teachers with the same degree of completeness possible for city teachers, but conditions are improving in this respect. Table 2 (pp. 83 to 86) gives the 1914-15 salaries for rural teachers in certain counties, by State and term in days, as reported by the State and county school officers. Table 3 (p. 87) gives the salaries of county superintendents for 1914-15 in certain States. This information was furnished by the State and county school officers. The growing importance of the county superintendent's position is apparent from the increasing number of good salaries paid. TABLE 1.-Salaries of officers and teachers in public schools of cities having 2,500 and fewer than 5,000 inhabitants-1914-15. [Figures in italic relate to men; the other figures to women.] |