At the A.L.R.I. this year Martha Merson and I have been trying in a variety of ways to research and focus attention on some of these problems faced by people working in this field. We developed and sent to the coordinators of all DOE-funded programs in the SABES Boston region a questionnaire looking at this picture from the program level. We have been soliciting letters from teachers who have been working in the field for a number of years and have been talking to others on the phone. We also intend to talk to a number of the "casualties," people who have decided to leave the field during the last few years, and to program coordinators about the turnover problem. This article will present the results of our program survey, and in an accompanying article (see page 6) we present letters we have received from teachers. In a future article we hope to discuss the results of our phone conversations with program coordinators and with current and former teachers regarding their jobs and the problem of staff turnover.
A few months ago, we decided to send out a survey to programs because, in addition to hearing from individual practitioners through letters and phone calls, we wanted to get some sense of what was happening, in the aggregate, to staff at ABE programs in this area regarding salaries, benefits, and other working conditions. So, last October, we sent a one-page questionnaire to the coordinators at all fifty DOE-funded programs in the Boston region, asking each of them to answer seven questions about their program, comparing their current situation in FY98 with their situation a few years ago, in FY94. We wanted to know whether each of the following had increased, decreased, or stayed about the same over this period of time: 1) the program's ABE grant from DOE; 2) the program's overall ABE budget from all sources, not just DOE; 3) the number of full-time staff employed by their program; 4) the number of "substantial part-time staff" (defined as over 25 hours per week but less than full-time) employed by their program; 5) the average salary paid to the program's full-time staff; 6) the average rate paid to part-time staff; and 7) the number of program staff covered by employer-sponsored health insurance. We have so far received replies from fifteen Boston-area programs, and we want to sincerely thank the coordinators at these programs who took the time to complete and return the questionnaire. This represents a decent rate of return for a direct mail survey, and although the results obviously do not reflect the input of all programs in our area, we feel they do fairly represent the overall picture for programs in our region. Not all programs answered all questions, so the numbers reported in the following discussion do not always add up to the total number of replies.
Not surprisingly, the large majority of programs who responded (twelve) have experienced an increase-in most cases a sizeable increase-in funding from the Massachusetts Department of Education over the past few years. Two programs indicated their grants had remained about the same; none has seen a decrease. On the other hand, only a minority of programs (four) have seen their overall ABE budget increase during this same time. A greater number (seven) report that their overall budgets have, in fact, remained about the same, while one program actually reports a decrease.
The number of full-time staff has increased during this time at three programs, has decreased at five programs, and has remained the same at five programs. The situation regarding "substantial part-time" staff is similar, with one program reporting an increase in number, three reporting a decrease, and seven reporting no change. The specific numbers reported by these programs suggest an actual decrease in the overall number of full-time jobs at ABE programs in our region during the past few years.
The average salary paid to full-time staff has increased at nine programs and has stayed about the same at five; the rates paid to part-time staff have similarly increased at seven programs and remained the same at five. Interestingly, most of the programs still reported pay to full-time staff in terms of an hourly wage rather than a yearly salary, and those reporting actual salaries paid more than those reporting hourly rates. These average rates for full-time staff varied from $12/hour to $18/hour, with the overall average (mean) being around $14/hour. Assuming 35 hours/week and 52 weeks/year, such a rate would translate into a salary of around $25,480, just over the DOE target minimum of $25,000/year for full-time salaries. (But those may be questionable assumptions; probably not all full-time positions actually pay for that many hours over the course of a year.) Average pay at the three programs reporting actual salaries ranged from $30,000/year to $36,000/year, with the overall average here being around $33,600/year. Programs' average rates for part-time staff also varied between $12 and $23.70 per hour, with an average here of $15.27/hour . Unfortunately, since we didn't ask how many hours part-time staff were paid for (teaching time, prep time, meeting time?), it's not possible to see how this compares to the DOE target minimum of $18/contact hour.
Finally, most programs (eleven) indicated that the number of staff covered by program-sponsored health insurance remained the same, while two programs said that the number had increased, and one reported a decrease.
From these results we are inclined to draw three interesting conclusions: 1) Although DOE grants have gone up, often dramatically, for most (though not all) programs in our region, for the majority of programs this increase has, it seems, merely been making up for the loss of other funding during this same time; only a minority of programs have actually seen an overall increase in their total ABE budget from all sources during this period. Since the increased DOE funding has come with significant new mandates and responsibilities for programs, this may mean that some programs are now in effect being expected to do much more with the same amount of overall funding.
2) Even though state ABE funding has increased substantially at most programs and even though overall ABE budgets have increased significantly at several programs, this has apparently not translated into any increase in full-time positions in the field, and, if the numbers we received are indicative, there may even have been a slight reduction in the number of such positions in this region over the last few years. It thus appears that, at least in the Boston region, the field has not been successful in achieving one of its goals over the past few years-namely, increasing the number of full-time positions in the field.
3) Although staff at slightly over half the programs have seen increases in pay over the past few years, staff at the other programs have experienced no increase during this entire time. The good news is that those who received increases are now at roughly the same pay levels as those who did not, but the experience of those who did not suggests that all may now be at a plateau beyond which it may be difficult to go. This places most full-time workers in the field at salaries of around $25,000/year, and puts many part-timers, who usually work fewer hours per week and fewer weeks per year, making considerably less than that. Health insurance coverage has also not expanded to more staff during this time. All this in a city like Boston, where living costs (including health insurance) are among the highest in the country and the possibilities presented by job opportunities in other fields are among the most enticing. Attracting and retaining good, dedicated, enthusiastic teachers and other staff in this field certainly remains a challenge under these conditions.