Education

Emma Camp | 9.10.2024 2:20 PM

Teachers are underpaid, right? It's a near-universally repeated maxim. Kamala Harris thinks so. So does Betsy DeVos. However, the reality is a bit more complicated.

For the 2023–24 school year, the average public school teacher salary was just under $70,000—well over the average for bachelor's degree graduates ages 25 to 34 (though many teachers have master's degrees).

West Virginia paid teachers the least, at around $52,000 per year, while California paid them the most, with an average salary of over $95,000. According to the National Education Association, teacher salaries top out at over $100,000 in 16.6 percent of districts. However, salaries have generally stagnated. From 2002 to 2020, inflation-adjusted teacher salaries declined by 0.6 percent while as per-pupil spending increased.........

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