Let's Talk About Teachers' Pay For A Minute

Let's talk about being a teacher for a minute. I think we all agree it's an important job. Some of us say it'd be great to do, after all they get summers off. Some of us loathe the idea of trying to teach other peoples' kids. Either way, we agree it's important, and has it's challenges. I've done a little substituting in my day, and I can tell you it's tough.

Now, I'm going to speak broadly and generally for a minute, not to the laws of any one specific state. Teachers, broadly speaking, have to have a bachelor's degree of some kind, usually in education. In many states, they have to take course work post-graduation that is roughly equal to earning a master's degree. This puts teachers in the upper-echelons of being educated in this country. For most Americans, their educational level has a direct effect on their earnings levels. Earning more degrees means making more money.

In 2009, the average income, weekly, in the United States was $774 a week. The unemployment average level was 7.9%. People with a bachelor's degree, on the average, made $1,025 a week, and suffered through 5.2% unemployment. This works out to about $53,300 a year. As I stated above, teachers almost all have a bachelor's degree. The average weekly salary on a worker with a master's degree in this nation is $1,257. Over a year this equals out to $67,878 roughly, per year. Their unemployment rate is 3.9%. I include these unemployment numbers because in many states, teachers have been facing recent lay-offs, so it's worth noting. Most of these teachers fit into minimally the bachelor's category for education, and many have master's too.

Nationally speaking, teachers receive a median salary between $40,432 a year and $43,889, depending on their level of teaching. While certainly good enough to live on, that's not matching up with their education. In fact, this is a trend. In Wisconsin, where this controversy is hot right now, teachers start their salaries at $25,222, and average $46,390 a year. In Tennessee, where the legislature wants to strip them of collective bargaining rights, they start at $32,369, and average a salary of $42,537. In New Jersey, where Chris Christie has made it his mission to gut their contracts to nothing, teachers start at $38,408, and average a salary of $58,156. In Pennsylvania here, on the home front, teachers start at $34,976, and average a salary of $54,027.

Now, before someone twists those numbers around to say that Christie is right in New Jersey, it's worth noting that New Jersey gets what it pays for, good schools. In fact, at the point New Jersey was cutting $800 million from it's education spending, it was one of the top states on test scores in the country. The point isn't whether or not these are living wages- they are. The point is, based on educational background, nearly all teachers, on the average, are not compensated at the levels they should be. This isn't my opinion. It's statistical fact.