Report finds housing costs outpacing growth of teacher salaries

NINA MOINI: Well, a new study from the National Council on Teacher Quality shows that housing costs are outpacing the growth of teacher salaries across the country, including right here in Minnesota. As part of a sample of more than 72 large urban school districts around the US, the research and advocacy group looked at whether teachers at Anoka-Hennepin Public School District and St. Paul Public Schools could afford to rent or own a home in the community they teach in.

So joining us to talk about what impact housing affordability has on teacher retention and the education system is Heather Pesky, the president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, and John Wolhaupter, an educator in the Anoka-Hennepin Public School District. Thank you both for being here.

JOHN WOLHAUPTER: Thanks for having us.

HEATHER PESKY: Thank you for inviting me, Nina.

NINA MOINI: Well, thank you. So Heather, I'll start with you. Give us an overview, if you would, of just what your research revealed about housing affordability and teacher salaries.

HEATHER PESKY: Well, Nina, it's a very sobering picture. We know that it's really hard to attract and retain great teachers when they can't afford to pay rent or a mortgage. And we looked since 2022 to compare how much the costs of housing have risen compared to teacher salaries.

And what we found is that since 2019, housing prices in Anoka-Hennepin have shot up twice as fast as teacher salaries. We know that in St. Paul, teacher salaries increased by 20%, but home prices jumped 29% and rent jumped 51%. In Anoka-Hennepin, while teacher salaries increased by 21%, home prices jumped 36% and renting costs jumped by 51% So just in summary, what we're seeing is that while teacher salaries are increasing in Anoka-Hennepin and in St. Paul, rent and buying a home are almost double the cost of the increase in teacher salaries, which just reduces the purchasing power for teachers.

NINA MOINI: John, those are tough numbers to hear. How does that make you feel as an educator?

JOHN WOLHAUPTER: Well, it's really a struggle to bring in continuing new teachers on a constant basis. We were really pretty proud in our new contract of pushing our starting salary over $50,000 for the first time, but that's not really keeping pace with inflation for our teachers, especially when you include other factors. People are facing really high health care costs, child care costs, and student loan payments. And you take all those things together, whether it's affording rent or being able to save for a down payment for a home in the long term, it really makes it hard to be a teacher, especially when you're ready competing with other professions that people can go into right out of college, where they might be making $10,000 or $20,000 more a year.

NINA MOINI: And John, are you seeing some of your colleagues that are struggling with this, perhaps newer colleagues?

JOHN WOLHAUPTER: Absolutely. Using myself as an example, I remember signing my first contract. Right away one of the first things I did was sign a lease for an apartment to get out on my own. Increasingly, we're seeing our new teachers perhaps living and moving back at home with their parents as they start their career. In other cases, they're moving farther out of our district, which reduces their ability to be a part of our direct community. So they start forming those roots in other places, and they're less visible in the lives of their students and the parents and families of our district.

NINA MOINI: Heather, where would there be any checks on something like this? Is this something that just continues to go on, or what are you all trying to do to raise the flag and say, hey, this is a really big problem?

HEATHER PESKY: Well, first, we're trying to call attention to these numbers. I've been working in this work for a long time, and even I was surprised to see how steeply the costs of housing have increased compared to teacher salaries. We know that if teachers can't afford to live near the schools where they work, the districts like the one John is in face higher turnover, there are more vacancies, and they have more difficulty keeping experienced teachers in classrooms. So we know that housing costs are really quite connected to the ability for districts to attract and retain great teachers.

NINA MOINI: Well, and John, let's talk about the students as well and just the school community. Why is it so important, you feel, for people to be able to live in the communities where they're serving?

JOHN WOLHAUPTER: Well, when people have that direct experience with their own schools, often their own students go through our school system and they put additional roots down by becoming coaches or being involved in parent groups. And so you develop a large sense of the whole system through all those different connections. And when we have parents that are being forced to move out to the next ring of suburbs or the next county, people are making those connections in their other districts and then building those connections there.

And so they feel less connected to our own districts. They're not involved in local school board decisions. They're not as involved in sports or other things. And so it's really important for people to be able to be a part of the community that they work in.

NINA MOINI: And Heather, what are some of the other challenges around this? I know that we know that school districts are facing budget deficits. Obviously, the cost of housing have gone up. But are there other factors that make this an even bigger problem?

HEATHER PESKY: Well, I think that it hurts the economy overall. I think what John is describing is how much it hurts a community. I remember being a fourth grade teacher myself and running into my students in the grocery store, and there's just something that knits a teacher into the community when they live in that community.

But I think when we look at these numbers, Nina, when we see that in St. Paul Public Schools, renting a one-bedroom apartment costs 30% of a beginning teacher salary for a teacher who comes in with a bachelor's degree, that simply means that the teacher doesn't have much, if any, money left to spend on anything else. So then teachers start really trying to save. And they're trying to save from spending.

And that means they're not going out to the movies. They're not going out to restaurants. They're not buying as much when it comes to consumer goods. And so this is just really not good for the economy of the local area.

And certainly, as John said, it's not good for students and their families when teachers live far away from where they're teaching. It means really much longer commuting time, where teachers are on the roads, which means that they're more likely to leave the district. They're more likely to be absent from work. Nina, they're even more likely to receive lower observation scores than teachers who live closer to where they're teaching. So in all, it really takes a toll on a teacher, but also takes a toll on students and families and the communities in which those teachers teach.

NINA MOINI: And when you're looking at these issues, Heather, you're taking a zoom out over the country as well. And it sounds like you found some kind of interesting ways that other school districts across the country might be trying to help with this?

HEATHER PESKY: We did, Nina. We found, for example, that some districts have boosted starting teacher salaries by quite a bit. In Albuquerque, for example, they boosted teacher starting salaries nearly 60% since 2019, which is enough to nearly match these explosive local housing cost increases. Similarly Detroit, a little bit closer to you all, restructured its teacher salary schedule, boosting starting pay by about $17,000 in one year to help teachers keep pace with housing costs. But in other districts where they may not be able to pay extra to teachers and where the pay is not keeping pace with rising housing prices, districts themselves are finding housing more directly by partnering with other places, even developers, to provide more affordable housing for teachers.

So for example, we know in Bentonville schools in Arkansas, they developed a teacher-specific affordable housing community that offers both rental and home ownership pathways. Other districts, like Fairfax County Public Schools, are partnering with local housing authorities to ensure that teachers have access to subsidized affordable housing options. So everything from low-interest mortgage loans to providing actual housing, affordable housing, for teachers, these are all options that districts are taking on in order to provide their teachers with housing close to where they teach.

NINA MOINI: And John, I'll just throw the last question to you here. When you're hearing some of those solutions, do those sound palatable to you, or what do you think districts in Minnesota should do?

JOHN WOLHAUPTER: I think all of the solutions that were presented really sound like great opportunities. The big thing to keep in mind is that the current status quo is really not sustainable. We have teachers that are leaving very frequently in the first few years of their career and moving on to other things for a combinations of reasons, but one is because they're not able to support their families and their lives in the way that they want, given the current situation. And being able to have a comfortable home that is a part of the community is one of those factors.

NINA MOINI: John and Heather, thank you both so much for coming by and shining light on this. I appreciate it.

JOHN WOLHAUPTER: Thank you.

HEATHER PESKY: Thank you so much, Nina. Thank you so much, John.

NINA MOINI: Thank you both. That was Heather Pesky, the president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, and John Wolhaupter, an educator with the Anoka-Hennepin School District.