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Teacher pay: Which states pay teachers the most?

By Debbie Lord, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

Teachers rally outside of Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey's Executive Tower Monday, April 30, 2018, in Phoenix on their third day of walk outs. 

By Debbie Lord, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

Teachers across the country are rallying for better pay and more funding for their classrooms, and in some cases, they are striking for it.

The average public school teacher salary for 2017-2018 was $60,477, according to the National Education Association, the largest teacher's union in the United States. That number was up from $59,660 in 2016-17. The NEA estimated that the average salary for this school year (2017-18) will be $61,730.

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In the report, average teacher salaries ranged from a high in New York ($84,227), California ($80,680), and Massachusetts ($80,357), to a low in Mississippi ($44,926), West Virginia ($45,642) and Oklahoma ($46,300).

The study showed that while salaries for classroom teachers went up an average of 11.5 percent from school year 2008-2009 to the estimated salaries for school year 2017-2018, when adjusted for inflation, overall teacher salaries decreased by 4.5 percent during that time period.

One-fifth of new public school educators leave the profession by the end of their first year of teaching, according to the NEA. Nearly half will leave within five years.

Low starting wages and pay increases that fail to match others in jobs that require similar education and experience is often cited as a reason for leaving the job.

In no state are teachers paid more than comparable college graduates, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The EPI reports that, on average, teachers make 77 percent of what other college graduates make.

While several organizations track teacher salaries by state, the numbers can be a bit different depending on the criteria used to gather the information. Some organizations include private schools in the calculation and some do not, for instance.

Here is a list of teacher salaries for 2017-2018 from the NEA:

  1. Alabama: $52,285
  2. Alaska: $74,977
  3. Arizona: $48,723
  4. Arkansas:  $51,791
  5. California: $80,680
  6. Colorado:  $56,010
  7. Connecticut: $74,517
  8. Delaware: $65,125
  9. District of Columbia:  $76,486
  10. Florida: $48,526
  11. Georgia: $59,185
  12. Hawaii: $57,866
  13. Idaho: $47,504
  14. Illinois: $64,933
  15. Indiana: $54,308
  16. Iowa: $55,647
  17. Kansas: $49,422
  18. Kentucky: $52,338
  19. Louisiana: $50,000
  20. Maine: $51,077
  21. Maryland: $68,357
  22. Massachusetts: $78,100
  23. Michigan: $62,287
  24. Minnesota: $57,346
  25. Mississippi: $42,925
  26. Missouri: $48,618
  27. Montana: $51,422
  28. Nebraska: $52,338
  29. Nevada: $57,376
  30. New Hampshire: $57,522
  31. New Jersey: $69,623
  32. New Mexico: $47,122
  33. New York: $81,902
  34. North Carolina: $49,970
  35. North Dakota: $52,968
  36. Ohio: $58,202
  37. Oklahoma: $45,292
  38. Oregon: $61,862
  39. Pennsylvania: $66,265
  40. Rhode Island: $66,477
  41. South Carolina: $50,000
  42. South Dakota: $46,979
  43. Tennessee: $50,099
  44. Texas: $52,575
  45. Utah: $47,244
  46. Vermont: $57,349
  47. Virginia: $51,049
  48. Washington: $54,433
  49. West Virginia: $45,555
  50. Wisconsin: $54,998
  51. Wyoming: $58,187

Cox Media Group

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