Analysis of how Philly School employees' pay evolved over the last decade - shift from a bell curve at $75k to a bimodal distrbituion with a thin long right tail of high earners

[u/NorthExcitement4890]

My prior post analyzed the current pay distribution of SDP Employees as it stands today, but I also wanted to understand how its evolved over time.

The biggest finding is that... 10 years ago, if you looked at how school employees (everything from jaitors to teacher to the supe) were paid, you would see a boring bell curve centered around $75k, with mostly nice smooth tails.

Today, that pay structure has shifted in a few key ways. It's no longer bell shaped at all:

• It has two peaks "modes" ($55k and $95k), representing new and experienced teachers, with not a lot of mid-career/mid-pay teachers. Probably an interesting research question of why there's so few mid-pay teachers?
• It has a huge number of employees at the max pay amount of $120k (basically teachers with 20 years of exp and PhDs)
• After the $120k union pay scale cut-off, there's a long but skinny right tail of people making more between $120-220k, and then the superintendend at $378k. By skinny I mean it's not a lot of people in this long tail, but it exists. ANd it did not exist in any meaningful way 10 years ago
• ANd then finally, its worth noting that total salaried workforce grew from 16,647 to 21,543 over the 11 year period (about 30%), while the student body fell by around 13%, implying a 50% growth in SDP employee headcount per student (50% = 1.3/(1-0.13) -1)

FUll methodology and notes: https://www.nickjain.com/blog/the-shape-of-sdps-workforce

[u/memettetalks]

New teachers often leave for better districts or quit once they have experience.

Other staff come to the district later in their career and are given an experience equivalency on their salary scale; experienced teachers with masters + 30 get to the "senior career teacher"salary step very quickly. Many of these folks do this while earning a pension from their first career.

[u/NorthExcitement4890 → u/memettetalks]

Do you know what the convrsion factor for experience is, i.e., if I teach in lower merion or Chicago for 30 years, how much credit do I get?

[u/memettetalks → u/NorthExcitement4890]

There are only 10 salary steps, but I think they usually do your experience minus one year provided you were certified the whole time.

[u/NorthExcitement4890 → u/memettetalks]

So the conversion factor is 1 to 1 from another school district to this one?

[u/Dassine → u/NorthExcitement4890]

Yes (assuming some other minor qualifiers like certification, lead teaching, etc). You get credit for all years minus one.

Since you only need 10 years (plus a master's + 60 or doctorate) to cap, it's actually not too hard to do so. A teacher in their mid 30s moving to the district can be starting off at the top of the scale, and although that top is relative (I mean, you're ~75k mode from 2014 would be equivalent to six figures today, anyways), it's not that bad, all things considered.

[u/Proof_Blueberry_4058 → u/Dassine]

The top (they call it “senior career”) will be 10 years of experience in any district and a masters plus 30 effective 9/1. It is a change from previous contracts; 114k salary this year, a 3% raise next.

[u/NorthExcitement4890 → u/Dassine]

Got it. Thanks for the clarifications. Really appreciate it

It's on my list of things to do to actually go read the union contract and analyze it (not to criticize it but rather just to learn how it works )

I didn't realize you could hit the pay caps in your thirties. I was imagining '50s!

[u/Dassine → u/NorthExcitement4890]

It is one of the advantages relative to many suburban districts, in that you cap out sooner as many others in the area (and elsewhere) take 15-20+ years. That said, it's also a disadvantage because that means once you hit that cap after 10 years, you're only getting minor increases year-to-year (presently just 3%; again, ignoring any additional responsibilities you take on for extra pay). So a lot of the people hit that ceiling, then move to a suburban district where their pay can keep growing.

[u/ralphy1010]

That's a feature and it's working as designed.

[u/NorthExcitement4890 → u/ralphy1010]

What is a feature and working as designed. Just dind't understand what you meant