Today’s blog was written by Gema Zamarro, Andrew Camp, Josh McGee, Taylor Wilson, and Miranda Vernon. It summarizes the results of our recent research brief on salary changes under the Arkansas LEARNS Act.
The LEARNS Act substantially increased teacher pay and state education funding.
Education reforms often seek to attract and retain high-quality teachers by increasing salaries and/or creating more attractive compensation packages. In March 2023, Arkansas passed the LEARNS Act, an omnibus education reform bill that included one of the most comprehensive statewide changes in teacher compensation policy within the past 30 years. Among many other changes, the LEARNS Act:
- increased the state’s minimum teacher salary from $36,000 to $50,000,
- guaranteed all teachers a minimum raise of $2,000,
- removed the minimum teacher salary schedule,
- and relaxed other salary schedule requirements in state law.
The state is providing the funds for the required salary increases, resulting in nearly $183 million in new state education funding, a ~6.5% increase from 2022-23. In addition to raising teacher pay, the new law also provides districts with additional flexibility to either continue to reward educators primarily based on education and experience or to implement more creative approaches to teacher compensation.
In the first year of implementation, districts largely adjusted salary schedules to comply with the law.
In our recent research brief, we document how districts responded to the requirements of and additional flexibility provided by the new law. We collected districts’ salary schedules for the year before the LEARNS Act (2022-23) and the first school year of implementation (2023-24) to study how Arkansas school districts adjusted and how teacher salaries changed across the state.
We identified three patterns of salary schedule adjustments in response to the LEARNS Act:
- Districts whose entire 2022-23 salary schedule was below $50,000 transitioned to a “flat” $50,000 salary schedule. This school year, 55% of districts pay teachers with a bachelor’s degree a flat $50,000, regardless of experience.
- Districts whose salary schedule had some steps with salaries below $50,000 and others above increased pay to $50,000 for the cases below the minimum and provided a $2,000 raise for cases above. Thirty-six percent of districts’ bachelor’s degree salary schedules fit this pattern.
- Districts whose salary schedule was almost entirely above the new minimum simply kept their existing schedule and increased each step by $2,000. Nine percent of districts’ bachelor’s degree salary schedules fit this pattern.*
The LEARNS Act equalized first-year teacher pay statewide, but urban and wealthy districts continue to pay experienced teachers more.
Because of the changes described above, the LEARNS Act has had notable impacts on pay gaps between districts. Below are our main takeaways.
Starting teacher salaries are now essentially the same across districts.
Before LEARNS, entry-level teacher salaries in almost all school districts were well below the new minimum salary of $50,000, with 39% of districts paying new teachers the pre-LEARNS minimum salary of $36,000. Starting teacher salaries are now more equally distributed with minimal variation. Ninety-seven percent of districts now pay first-year teachers the new minimum of $50,000.
Distribution of Entry-Level Teacher Salaries – Bachelor’s Degree
Differences in teacher pay reappear as teachers gain experience.
While first-year teacher salaries have essentially been equalized to $50,000, gaps in teacher pay reappear for teachers with more experience. It remains advantageous for more experienced teachers to work in urban and more affluent districts who continue to offer higher salaries based on experience.
We created interactive visualizations that allow readers to compare salary schedules across districts.
The interactive map below allows you to compare teacher salary schedules across districts for different levels of education and experience. The interactive graph below the map shows complete district salary schedules by education service cooperative. These graphs allow you to compare districts’ salary competitiveness with nearby districts.
The LEARNS Act provided the largest benefits to teachers and districts serving more students living in poverty.
In large part, LEARNS has been an investment in rural and higher-poverty districts. Prior to LEARNS teachers serving more students living in poverty earned a lot less. Teachers made about $350 less for each 10 percentage point increase in the district childhood poverty rate (see the far left blue bar).
Now, there is no meaningful difference in starting pay based on childhood poverty (see the far left red bar).
However, the negative association between teacher pay and childhood poverty reappears as teachers gain experience. Even so, the differences are substantially smaller than before the LEARNS Act.
Estimated Teacher Salary Difference for a 10 Percentage Point Increase in District Childhood Poverty
The pay raises in the LEARNS Act will likely help attract and retain teachers, but more efforts are needed to tackle the state’s teacher staffing challenges.
The LEARNS Act substantially increased teacher compensation statewide and equalized early-career pay. The new law’s teacher pay provisions provided the largest benefits to teachers and districts serving rural and higher-poverty areas.
We expect these salary increases will positively impact teacher recruitment and retention, but it is difficult to predict how large those impacts will be. For example, increasing teacher pay will likely make it easier to recruit and retain teachers, especially in rural and higher poverty districts that experienced the largest increases. However, experienced teachers may feel relatively less valued if experience is not meaningfully compensated, and the fact that they can still earn more in an urban or more affluent district may mute the positive effects. Our future work will study these potential effects.
Finally, although LEARNS made positive improvements to teacher salaries, the changes are not likely to be enough to address the state’s teacher staffing challenges. Adopting innovative compensation strategies and other incentive programs are promising approaches that the state and districts should consider. At the same time, the state should continue to expand pathways and on-ramps into teaching to expand the supply of licensed teachers who can fill hard-to-staff positions.
* The percentages in these bullets were updated on 1/19/2024. The percentages use the 2023-24 BA salary schedules and are based on the following groupings:
• 55% of districts – all steps equal $50,000;
• 9% of districts – all steps where experience is greater than 0 are greater than $50,000; and
• 36% of districts – have parts of their schedule that are equal to $50,000 and parts that are above.