Teacher salaries by state
- Thread starter THE_DEVIL
- Start date
Agreed....too many educators are ignorant in the resolution of the conflict between following a passion and earning a higher salary.
It's really simple....if you don't like your teaching compensation package....go do something else.
There have been quite a few teachers in both sides of my family over the years. A long career can result in a decent pension. Much of the unhappiness in compensation is due to much higher salaries for “admins” and others not in the classroom.
You couldn’t get it all said with one response? Or did you think more about it, get infuriated, and had to respond again. Triggered.
Many, many are doing just that which leaves schools with too few teachers and lowers the quality/experience they can get to do the job. It's extremely shortsighted and simplistic to pull out the "if you don't like it, leave" argument when we're talking about the education of our children.
Schools don’t function without that group of people. The main mission is education and for that teachers are the primary focus, but education doesn’t happen without the support structure behind the scenes.
I am a central office admin. My contract is 260 days. I get 11 holidays, 15 vacation days (I have never used them all) and 14 PTO days (again never used them all). I’m responsible for all non-classroom operations. This includes maintenance/custodial, food service and transportation plus I’m the CFO, so all payrol/AP/AR/accounting functions fall under me. I am paid well for what I do, and have actually implemented compensation cuts to admin staff in my time at my current school as well as shrinking our non-education employee FTE count. I’ve also raised teacher salaries nearly $15k over 5 years while decreasing the teacher share of health insurance premiums.
I also didn’t see a ton of classroom teachers with me when I was:
Standing in a hole while a fire main was being repaired at 11 pm on Christmas Eve 3 years ago
Checking roads at 430 am when the weather is bad.
Meeting the environmental remediation company and State EPA at midnight when we found a chemical leak
Walking buildings on Christmas Day a couple years ago during a cold snap to make sure the buildings didn’t freeze
And a sundry list of similar things over the years.
But sure, be unhappy about people like me.
It's a double edged sword that cuts both ways. Pay any employee (teacher or not) too much and you will attract people interested only in the money as well as have some current employees overstay and become outdated and ancient because the money is so good they get fat and lazy.
Teaching is no different than the rest of the world. You don't want to be the best or worst paying. Likewise you don't want too much or too little employee turnover.
Or move to a state that respects teachers and pay them a decent wage, both the state and the teacher are happy.
Totally agree. If they feel they are being shorted in Iowa and can make more elsewhere...by all means please leave.
I’m happy to answer generally…a less than the teachers in terms of % and flat dollars. And I cut the value of the insurance benefit I receive.
And that was a half assed mealy mouthed commendation.
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It plays out before then. Supply and demand. If quantity and quality of teachers drops because too many leave the state or leave teaching and higher wages are needed to fill the spots....the wages will increase.
You already have certain subjects/types of teachers that command a premium due to supply and demand.
Do you think 20 yrs from now the quality of education will be highest for the state paying the highest? Probably not.
I figured you perhaps got smaller % bumps, but don’t know what flat dollars means.
Sorry if I offended you with faint praise, I don’t know why in your previous post you thought I was unhappy about you and other admins. Those who stick with and are efficient deserve great praise and you check the box.
The difference in pay is typically pretty substantial and really plays out over a career, as well you know.
When my cousin retires in two years, that will break a run of just shy of one hundred years that my mom’s side had an educator employed in her home county. We know a bit about the pay dynamics and the devotion required to help kids along a good path.
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I'm less interested in faith in market forces affecting a non-profit system than I am about the consequences of having a reactionary education system. Will having a generation or two of under educated citizens that get caught in a system playing catch-up be good for my community and ability to hire people where I work?
Do you feel that way about people in other occupations? Are you saying everyone in every job should just accept whatever salary their employer is willing to pay them and never ask for more?
I'm a retired teacher and I loved my job. My salary was fine. Health insurance costs were a big problem at my former school. Their are many benefits to being a teacher, but there are also negatives just like every other job. I do think it's unfair that teachers are often expected to be willing to work for less if they really love teaching children. I mean no one says Doctors should work for less if they really care about their patients' health or cops should work for peanuts if they are really passionate about serving the public. (Not meant as an attack on either occupation.)
Who doesn't wish they would make more money? Do you never complain about your salary/income?
Flat dollar means a teacher who has been with the district for 5 years has received $15k in raise over that time and I have not.
On a daily rate basis (to compare apples to apples) the difference in pay is minimal when you compare an experienced teacher with a masters degree to an admin. If you wanted to break it down hourly based upon time on site the difference shrinks again. Yes, the total compensation to total compensation is a substantial difference, but that doesn’t account for days worked, level of responsibility, and level of scrutiny an admin receives.
I’ve been fortunate to know many great teachers. The teachers who complain about admin and non-classroom staff are typically just ok at their job.
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Stickman is nothing but a troll, so don’t expect a serious response.
I wish the public at large had a similar concern about commission based sales as they do about teacher compensation.
I don’t think your hours on site is truly telling the story. My mom spent many, many hours at home grading papers, prepping lesson plans, talking with parents, etc… As the journalism lady, her time spent off hours guiding production of the school paper and yearbook did earn a stipend, but truly a pittance. Her reward was the writers she helped along the way.
Hell, I was the unpaid aid grading true/false and multiple choice tests while she handled the essays. This included many hours in the family wagon rolling the roads on vacation.
Back in her day, her classroom had to be cleared out at years end, even tho she would be back in it in the Fall. My brothers and I would tote books and supplies down the hall and steps to a storage room in the summer, only to repeat the other direction each Fall. Her compensation was what she agreed to, same as yours is what you accept.
Understood that she didn’t help check the heating system after hours, but her work day never ended after the buses left the lot.
Again, kudos to you for your efforts and thank you for making a difference.
You sure it’s not six.
People that punch a time clock hate teachers because they think they are equals hut they don’t have a degree and are replaced the next day.
People that don’t punch a time clock hate the two month break. They hate that teachers have an end each year and their job just seems like one never ending stream to their retirement. They like to bitch about teacher pay out of one side of their mouth and then argue “well you picked the job” out of the other. Both lazy arguments
No one wants to take coaching into account and othe extracurricular activities that skew teaching salaries.
When you add in my 2 coaching duties hours and the pay that comes with it my yearly hours worked stack up with anyone.
4 months off. What an idiot.
Nope. You really don’t know what you’re talking about where education is concerned. Most don’t. You’re one of millions.
Yeah. And they waste their time furthering their education and training, damn fools. Good thing we have conservative mini minds to bitch and complain in their ignorance.
We have a middle school that, as of now, is short 22 teachers to start next school year. A school of around 350 kids has a 22 teacher shortage. Mostly due to behaviors. I don’t know what the raise I would need to get me to go there and teach willingly.
We have administrators getting paid to do jobs our 8th graders could do. We have top paid administrators, including the superintendent who send their children to neighboring districts. No skin in the game. That’s great that you are committed and I KNOW teachers acknowledge great administrators. Unfortunately, we mostly see people not in classrooms making up bullshit work that doesn’t help our students. Wasting money every damn year and only pretending to listen to the teachers on the front lines. Again, credit to you for what you do for your district.
Exactly! I’m lucky if I make a buck an hour coaching. We do it because we love working with kids…trying to create productive members of American society. Sadly, a lot of dumbshits are pushing back against us.
It is pretty clear based upon what you post here that you work for a terrible school district. I’m sorry that is the case. Here is the buy in me and my peers have:
Superintendent- lives in community all 3 kids are grads. Spouse works for district.
Me - lives in community all 3 kids are grads. Spouse works for district
Assistant superintendent - lived in community, 2 kids currently attending spouse works in district
Curriculum director- spouse is an ER doctor so they live close to her hospital and CD commutes to school
HR director - lives in district, 1 grad and 2 kids attending currently
8 principals - 6 live in district, 5 have kids who are either grads or currently attending, the 6th moved here when he was hired this year but all his kids were already in college
7 assistant principals - 6 live in district and all have grades are kids currently attending. 7th was just hired and will move after his son graduates from HS in spring 2025.
That’s an admin team with buy-in and belief in what they do. Out of those 20 a little more than half of them were also teachers in our district before becoming admin.
Even as a central office admin without an educational role, I try to be in every building every 2 weeks. Doesn’t always happen, but I try.
Indiana.
By no means am I (or our school district) without faults, failures and challenges. However, I’m pretty proud of what we do and the successes we have even though we serve a less affluent, more challenging clientele. We have a larger than average special ed population that puts a ton of demand on our resources at times.
Surely stickman can point to all the posts where teachers are complaining about THEIR pay.
Kudos to the folks you listed as far as supporting the district. I just can’t quite get past the part talking about after hours work. Basically everybody in the system stretches hours as needed. Admins don’t shoulder that burden alone and you are compensated for it. When you talk about not seeing teachers checking the roads in the morning I call BS. We have many system employees out early and late for snow or storm days and it is not limited to admins.
LOL...your kids are unfortunate to have a parent as dumb as you. We have to deal with the damage parents like you do to your children every day. Do us all a favor and sterilize yourself so we won't be subjected to the spread of your genes beyond your current little pond. I'm teaching six years past my full retirement date because I love what I'm doing. I'm taking a group of 40 students to a national tech competition AFTER I retire because I love what I'm doing. Your GOP thieves have stolen tens of thousands of dollars from every NC teacher over the past 14 years and don't even challenge me on that or you'll get your worthless ass handed to you.
You want to take me on, you're way out of your weight class. You better come with more than this weak shit. FTR, I pointed out that NC has the second lowest mean pay in the country which puts the lie to the claim that pay reflects the cost of living. You want to dispute that fact, stickdick? 😂
1. I said on site after hours work. No teacher has the demand on their time within their base contract for the commitments expected of a principal. We pay decent stipends to teachers who choose to work after hours supporting an activity/sport. We also pay based on a 40 hour week, but only require teachers to be on site/on duty for 35 hours per week. This acknowledges the take home load some teachers carry.
2. Call BS all you want. There are 3 people in my district who drive roads on weather days. Me, the transportation director and the superintendent.
You don’t acknowledge that high level teachers can’t get it all done in those 35 hours, but get it done anyway, after hours.
Do your teachers have cafeteria duty? Do they work the school bus line?
Our little county has many more than three folks checking the roads and they are not all admins.
We have had MULTIPLE associate supers who have sent their kids to other districts for athletics. One of them is barely seen in buildings and staff calls him “Backpack”. Yes. It’s been poorly run for awhile. We have ONE downtown administrator…ONE…that nobody complains about. He’s the one that will drive a district van to take a volleyball team to a game when there isn’t a bus. Kind of hard for the other guy when he lives an hour away. 🤬
I’v posted dozens of times we need more adults in buildings than I need some massive pay raise. I’m saying that knowing my salary doesn’t keep up with the cost of living. We need to stick with a damn curriculum and hire adults to work with the kids.
I appreciate what central office people do even though it has little impact on my classroom (and that's not fair...it just has little impact on my day-to-day interactions with students). I understand - especially in a district our size - that there are things that have to get done regarding transportation and HR and all the other responsibilities you guys have. Thanks for your work.
I just had to point out that the NCGOP took away the bump for master's pay years ago. Getting a master's degree now means not one thing in terms of pay. Many still do it - including my no-pic wife - because they recognize that the benefits to their teaching outweigh the lack of pay. She retired two years ago...we're still paying on her degree for which she received no extra compensation. Why did she do that? Because she loved her work.
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