Dive Brief:
- Public school teachers made $72,030 on average in the 2023-24 school year, with salaries projected to increase 3% for 2024-25, according to a new report from the National Education Association.
- The estimated growth for 2025 represents a 26.9% increase from the average salary of $58,454 in 2015-16 — but despite those increases, the report found that teachers are making 5% less on average than they did 10 years ago when adjusted for inflation.
- The national average starting salary for teachers rose 4.4%, from $44,530 in 2022-23 to $46,526 in 2023-24, the largest such increase in the 15 years NEA has been tracking teacher salary benchmarks, the report stated. Adjusted for inflation, however, starting salaries are now $3,728 below those of 2008-09.
Dive Insight:
NEA’s 2025 report on educator pay and student spending found low pay is a moderate to serious concern for 87% of pre-K-12 teachers, and 40% hold more than one job.
“I increasingly hear my friends who are teachers warn kids not to go into teaching. They think that it may not be as lucrative a career,” said Marguerite Roza, director of Edunomics Lab, an education finance research center at Georgetown University. “We need to shift the field to think about how to hold on to our strongest and pay them better.”
According to the NEA report, more school districts — 20.7% — have a top teacher salary of at least $100,000. Just 8% have a top teacher salary below $60,000.
California ($101,084), New York ($95,615) and Massachusetts ($92,076) have the highest average teacher salaries, while Mississippi ($53,704), Florida ($54,875), and Missouri ($55,132) have the lowest.
Oklahoma, Idaho and Utah had the largest one-year increases in average teacher salaries with 10.5%, 9.1% and 8.9% growth, respectively.
Roza said it is important to track teacher salary trends, but “we don't have many great sources on teacher salaries.”
She pointed out that the NEA statistics do not account for extra pay such as bonuses and stipends that teachers receive for other duties like coaching or mentoring peers. That data, however, can be difficult to track.
According to the report, NEA uses the most recent actual or estimated data collected primarily from state departments of education as well as data from the National Center for Education Statistics and the Institute of Education Sciences.
Roza highlighted another issue that can distort teacher salary averages over time: district efforts to increase the number of staff instead of raising pay for existing staff.
“We did see a lot of that in the last few years. Hiring more people is bringing down the pay average, even though employees who stuck around got pay raises,” Roza said.
Roza said pay priorities depend on what school districts choose.
“If your philosophy is ‘The more staff, the better,’ then you're going to have lower salaries. If your philosophy is ‘I really want excellent teachers,’ then you have to go with fewer staff.”
Roza added that resources like the NEA’s rankings are still helpful because they provide more up-to-date information. Tracking and being aware of trends is important, she said, because schools should know what's happening within their district but also what’s working for other districts and states.
“The issue is that people are not aware of what the trends are. They often go look at their scale, and they match their scale. They're not really minding what's going on with the labor force,” Roza said. “The entire pay scale is agnostic about the quality or effectiveness of the teacher, and so I would rather see school systems get better data — not only on what they're paying but where they're struggling to hire.”
