California Legislators Advance Bill to Boost Teacher, School Staff Pay by 50 Percent

A sign reads 'Increase Educator Salaries' as Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) workers and supporters rally in Los Angeles State Historic Park on the last day of a strike over a new contract in Los Angeles on March 23, 2023. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

California legislators advanced a bill May 1 that would give teachers and other school staff a 50 percent pay raise by 2030 amid the state’s ongoing teacher shortage.

Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) said he introduced the bill—AB 938—to not only retain current teachers but to also attract more young people to the profession, which has been exacerbated since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We need to pay our teachers and essential school staff what they deserve,” Muratsuchi said in an April 26 statement. “Schools across the state are facing a workforce shortage, with many teachers and school employees unable to afford to live in the communities they work in. Moreover, there is a growing wage gap between teachers and comparable college graduates in other fields.”

The bill is supported by several teachers’ unions, including the California Federation of Teachers, the California School Employees Association, and the California Teachers Association.

E. Toby Boyd, with the teachers association, said in an April 26 statement the teacher and staff shortage crisis has a “direct impact on student achievement” and that students are impacted by teachers’ emotional commitment to their jobs—which can be affected “in large part because they are not fairly compensated for the work, time [and] effort …”

Education Field Landscape

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, teacher retirements in the state increased by 26 percent in 2020, according to data from the California State Retirement System.

Scrambling, California districts began hiring teachers with substandard teaching credentials or permits—which, according to a 2022 study by the Economic Policy Institute, is “one of the best indicators of a shortage.”

In California, individuals may teach in classrooms if they have completed some teaching credential or permit training and are currently enrolled in the program and on track to completion.

“Districts are only supposed to be authorized to hire these underprepared teachers when a suitable, fully credentialed teacher is not available,” the study said.

The study further reported that inflation-adjusted average weekly wages of teachers have been relatively flat since 1996.

The average weekly wages of public school teachers increased just $29 from 1996 to 2021, while the inflation-adjusted weekly wages of other college graduates rose an average of $445 over the same period, according to the study.

Additionally, a 2018 study by education nonprofit ACT reported two-thirds of those not interested in teaching cited pay as one of the top three reasons why.

The bill will now be heard in the state Assembly Appropriations Committee in the coming weeks.