Chapter 7: The Relationship Between Teacher Compensation and Employment

Inadequate teacher pay is identified as a major contributor to the discontent in the teaching profession (García & Weiss, 2020; Heubeck, 2021) and is often the focus of policy interventions and discourse aimed at mitigating teacher shortages (Tran & Smith, 2020). It was one of the foundational issues motivating the recent waves of nationwide teacher walkouts (Shapiro et al., 2018) and a major reason why many high potential individuals avoid the teaching profession altogether (Bacolod, 2007; Corcoran et al., 2004; Tran & Smith, 2019). In this chapter, we will analyze academic and public discourse to develop a comprehensive analysis of teacher compensation, emphasizing the state of South Carolina. We begin with the question of whether teachers are underpaid.