Education Week - March 15, 2023 - 15

A $60K Starting Salary For Teachers?
Not a Single State Meets the Bar
By Libby Stanford
Lawmakers across the political
spectrum have made raising teacher
pay a top priority in 2023.
Democrats in both the U.S. House
and Senate have introduced bills
aiming to get teachers to a $60,000
base salary. President Joe Biden called
on lawmakers to give public school
teachers a raise during his State of
the Union address earlier this month.
And Republican governors, including
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee
Sanders, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp,
and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, have
touted proposals to raise teacher pay
while in office.
" We should ensure that parents
continue to play an active role in
their kids' education, and we should
ensure that teachers are paid what they
deserve, " Reeves, whose state ranks
last in teacher pay, said in his state of
the state address on Jan. 30. " It is my
firm belief that Mississippi has some
of the best teachers in the nation, and
their salaries should reflect that. "
The attention on teacher salaries
comes as many school districts are
struggling to hire new teachers or
bring prospective teachers into the
profession. It also follows decades of
stagnation on teacher salaries, with
those in the profession often earning
far less than others with similar education
levels.
But where exactly does teacher pay
stand? Education Week compiled the
latest figures to find out.
Average teacher salaries have
barely risen since the 1990s when
adjusted for inflation
$65,090: The average public school
teacher salary in the 2020-21 school year,
the most recent year reported by the
National Center for Education Statistics.
The 2020-21 salary is actually $519 lower
than the 2019-20 average salary when
inflation is taken into account.
$83: How much average public
school teacher pay has risen since the
1989-90 school year, when adjusted
for inflation.
$1,278: How much less teachers
made on average during the 2020-21
school year than a decade earlier.
$222: The difference in average pay
between secondary and elementary
school teachers. Secondary school
teachers made $63,959 on average
in the 2016-17 school year, the last
year of data available for that level.
Elementary teachers earned $63,737
that school year.
$54,000: The expected median
salary for education majors with bachelor's
degrees by the time they reach
age 59, according to a 2018 study by
the Georgetown University Center
on Education and the Workforce.
That number is lower than it is for all
other majors. Education majors would
need a graduate degree to achieve the
median earnings of an average person
with a bachelor's degree, according to
the study.
27: The number of years it takes on
average for a teacher with a bachelor's
degree to make $75,000, according to
a 2021 National Council on Teacher
Quality study. It would take 24 years
for a teacher with a master's degree to
reach $75,000.
Teacher pay varies widely
by state and region
22: The number of states that
paid teachers an average of at least
$60,000 in 2020-21, according to
data from the National Education
Association's Rankings and Earnings
Report. Democratic lawmakers have
pointed to $60,000 as the ideal minimum
salary for teachers in bills in both
the House and the Senate.
0: The number of states where
teachers earned a starting salary of at
least $60,000 in 2020-21, according
to an NEA report on teacher salary
benchmarks. Montana had the lowest
starting salary that year, at $32,495,
and Washington, D.C., had the highest,
at $56,313.
$66,432: NEA's projected 2021-22
average teacher salary, which would
be a 1.8 percent increase over the association's
estimated 2020-21 average of
$65,293.
17: The number of governors
who mentioned raising teacher
pay in their 2023 state of the state
speeches, according to the Education
Commission of the States, an organization
that researches and tracks
education policy.
New York teachers earn the most
$90,222: The average salary for
teachers living in New York in 202021,
according to the NEA. The salary
is the highest average salary, followed
by Massachusetts', with an $86,755
average salary in 2020-21.
$46,862: The average salary for
teachers living in Mississippi in 2020-21,
which is the lowest average salary for that
year, according to the NEA. Mississippi
lawmakers passed the state's largest
increase to starting salaries last year
with a $5,140 bonus that would increase
teachers' starting salaries from $37,123
to $41,638, according to Mississippi
Today. The next lowest average salary
is in South Dakota with $49,547.
$50,000-$60,000: The pay range
that the majority of states fell into in
2020-21, according to the NEA. There
were 27 states with average teacher
salaries in this range that year.
How Much Teachers Made by State in 2020-21
Average salary
$45,000
$90,000
ME
AK
VT
WA
ID
OR
CA
MT
ND
WY
NV
AZ
NM
TX
HI
FL
SOURCE: National Education Association
Teacher Pay Over Time
Estimated average annual salary of teachers in public elementary/secondary schools in 2020-21 dollars
CO
UT
OK
SD
NE
KS
LA
MN
IA
MO
AR
MS
WI
IL
KY
IN
MI
OH
WV
TN
AL
GA
VA
SC
MD
NC
PA
DE
DC
NY
NJ
NH
MA
CT
RI
All Teachers
Elementary Teachers
Secondary Teachers
INTERACTIVE DATA
See how teachers' salaries have changed
between 1959 and 2020 and how their
salaries vary by state and region.
> edw.link/teachersalary
NOTE: 2019-20 data for elementary and secondary teachers not available.
SOURCE: National Center for Education Statistics
EDUCATION WEEK | March 15, 2022 | www.edweek.org | 15
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Education Week - March 15, 2023

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