What do Teachers Make? Educator Salaries by the Numbers

If you’re giving earnest consideration to becoming an educator, chances are that you’re not doing it to make yourself rich.  Let’s face it, when is the last time that you saw a teacher on the cover of Forbes? More likely you are interested in the noble pursuit of the education of young minds.  But as in any profession, in order to understand what your career choice is likely to mean for you in regards to compensation, it’s important to take a good hard look at the numbers.

So we’ve taken some of the most recent information provided by the folks over at the American Federation of Teachers (affiliated Union under AFL-CIO) to give you a comprehensive overview of educator compensation including average salaries, high and low starting points, and relation to similar professions so that you have a great idea exactly what you can expect.

1.  HIGHEST AND  LOWEST BEGINNING SALARIES

Average Starting Teacher Salaries by State Top 10

So if you’re thinking about becoming a teacher in New Jersey, the good news is that it looks like you’ll be starting at over $40K annually.  Not bad for right out of college.  The Eastern seaboard looks well represented with Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware and New York joining NJ.

Average Starting Teacher Salaries by State Bottom 10

Taking a look at the lower portion of the starting salaries you’ll see that the Northwest portion of the country has a low starting point for teachers with Idaho, Nebraska, Utah, Montana, North and South Dakota all in the bottom 10.  As the exception that proves the rule, Maine represents the North East also showing up in the bottom 10.

BOTTOM LINE: The top beginning salary is slightly over $44,000 while the bottom represents just under $27,000.   That’s a pretty significant shift.  Granted the fact that you’re most inclined to teach near your home, but if you have occasion to select where you’d like to teach, the Northeast doesn’t look all that bad if you have the opportunity.

2. HIGHEST AND LOWEST AVERAGE SALARIES

Average Teacher Salaries By State Top 10

So you’re ok with where you’re going to start, but you’re thinking long term.  You’d like to know how the overall status appears for your given state.  Taking a look you’ll see that there is some parity between starting and average salaries.  California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Maryland show up on both lists, meaning that in addition to starting with a higher salary your growth potential continues to be the strongest.    Rhode Island, Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania round out your top ten further showing that the Northeast and its shared Midwest states have the strongest salary potential.

Average Teacher Salaries By State Bottom 10

Once again the Dakota’s have an appearance in the bottom 10, as do Montana, Utah, Nebraska and Maine.  Sadly this clearly illustrates that in these states you’re likely to start off lower and stay there for a greater period of time.

BOTTOM LINE: Again it appears as if the Northeast has the best salary potential, while the Northwest shows the lowest.  The highest average salary comes in by California at over $63,000 while South Dakota is nearly $30,000 LOWER!!!  One important thing to note at this point is the adjustments in Cost of Living.  While you may be making significantly more in New York, it might also be far more expensive for you to live there as well.  These are all things to take stock of when making your choice, which should never be based on figures alone.  These are simply meant to help paint just part of an overall picture for you.

3. COMPARITIVE CAREERS

So here’s where you can see in clear detail the old adage that “teachers are underpaid.”  This graph shows a period of 5 years detailing the differential between teacher salaries versus “comparable professions.”  What are comparable professions you ask?  According to the technical details of the survey, comparable professions were compiled using BLS Occupational Projections and were defined as;

“Comparable occupations are those within the college education cluster, which held a bachelor’s degree as the most significant source of postsecondary education.”

In basic terms, these are professions that require a similar education level and have a similar scope of duties.

BOTTOM LINE: Looking at the graph you can see that the average growth trend in average teacher salaries is nearly identical to that of its professional counter parts.  That being said you can also see that the disparity between the two has remained similar as well, suggesting that teacher salaries has not closed the gap.  Is there hope?  Possibly.  The current administration under President Barack Obama had made a great number of Campaign promises regarding correcting the disparity for teacher compensation.  According to his campaign website he stressed “We will recruit an army of new teachers and develop innovative ways to reward teachers who are doing a great job, and we will reform No Child Left Behind so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them.” Whether that  was campaign rhetoric or the true and attainable goals of an education reformer remains to be seen.

Princeton vs. Playboy – Party School Showdown

Every year “The Princeton Review” releases their inevitable list of the Top 20 Party Schools, and every year I wonder how they came up with the list.  The first time that this question came to me was in 1998 when The State University of New York at Albany topped the list.  I grew up around Albany and I wondered how the hell this could be possible.  I’ve been to the bars in Albany… nothing special let me tell you.  I’ve been to the Campus as well, it kind of reminds you of the place where dreams go to die.  So what was it about this school that made it the top party school in the nation?!??!

Every year since, I’ve postulated as to what the top 20 party schools had to offer.  This year is no different.  Some are very obvious (Florida, Florida State, UC Santa Barbara.)  Some are quite surprising (Union College, Sewanee: The University of the South?!?!?!).

But Princeton doesn’t have the entire hold on this subject… each year Playboy weighs in on the topic too.  So this year, I figured let’s take their respective top 10’s and put them up, head to head.  Who got it right and who got it wrong?

PRINCETON 1 ) Penn State University 2 ) University of Florida 3 ) University of Mississippi 4 ) University of Georgia 5 ) Ohio University 6 ) West Virginia University 7 ) University of Texas 8 ) University of Wisconsin 9 ) Florida State University 10 ) University of California-Santa Barbara

PLAYBOY 1 ) University of Miami 2 ) University of Texas (Austin) 3 ) San Diego State University 4 ) University of Florida 5 ) University of Arizona 6 ) University of Wisconsin (Madison) 7 ) University of Georgia 8 ) Louisiana State University 9 ) University of Iowa 10 ) West Virginia University

RUNDOWN

FLORIDA LOVE – Looks like Florida gets some party love from the two lists.  Florida U. gets the most coming in at 2 (Princeton) and 4 (Playboy).  Miami U. tops Playboy’s list and didn’t even make the top 20 of Princeton’s.  The bottom line is simple; if the weather is nice, the co-eds are hot and the teams are big… there’s gonna be some party love.

SOUTHEAST – Outside of Florida, according to both lists, it’s still a party.  States close to Florida seem to know how to have a good time.  Georgia is on both lists, as is West Virginia and LSU shows up once too.  I guess it’s easy to see why Spring Break is where it is.

WHERE IT’S COLD – Ohio and Wisconsin don’t offer much in terms of weather, but apparently what they lack in barometer they make up for in beer.

In the end, I’d say this;  If I wanted  to know what schools I’d most like to go to for uninterrupted study time, I’d look at Princeton.  But if I wanted to know where to go to Party, I’d bet that Playboy has a better gauge on the subject.

Photograph protected by a creative commons license and is credited to the following:
Party Pic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/libertay

Best Education Quotes

I enjoy quotes.  Often times they can be both witty and insightful.  A good quote can brighten your day and should leave you with an enlightened feeling… like you’ve left knowing more than you did before.  My homepage has a handful of widgets that are quote based.  Each day I get to learn something that Einstein said.  Sometimes I’ll get a nice political quip from Jon Stewart.

Above my desk I have a list of quotations from the great thinker Socrates.  There are a number of quotes included in the list that I’ve tried to live by, but one in particular that has always stuck with me.  It says, “The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.”  I think that what he was trying to say is that education and the pursuit of knowledge is the road that leads to greatness.

So with that, I’ve compiled a list of what I feel to be some of the most poignant and remarkable quotes regarding the noblest of pursuits, education.  Some are funny, some are insightful, some are from great thinkers and some are from popular figures, but all are great. And I hope that you don’t mind, but I threw my 2 cents in.

“Remember that our nation’s first great leaders were also our first great scholars.”
John F. Kennedy

An apt quote from the author of “Profiles in Courage” and a great American. I don’t think that it

is a coincidence that the success of our country was founded on the backs of our great scholars

more so than it was on the backs of our great legislators.

“A liberally educated person meets new ideas with curiosity and fascination. An illiberally educated person meets new ideas with fear.”
- James B. Stockdale

You might remember Admiral Stockdale as Ross Perot’s running mate, and the disastrous Vice Presidential debates of ’92. But truth be told, he was a P.O.W. camp survivor for 8 years.  The quote is telling that one of the most decorated men in U.S. Military history held a stance on education that most politicians today would describe as “left wing liberal.”

“Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially for the lower classes of people, are so extremely wise and useful that to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.”
- John Adams

Going back to the JFK quote, we look at one of our nation’s founders.  If John Adams were alive and running for office today, he would be decried as a “bleeding heart” and unrealistic as to the amount of budget that can be allotted to education.

“Education is not the answer to the question. Education is the means to the answer to all questions.”
- William Allin

When I hear this quote, I think of the incredible minds associated the Large Hadron Collider. These people have taken their educations and degrees and used this knowledge to help answer some of the most difficult and pressing questions of all time. Namely, “What is life really?” and “How did we get here?”

“All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.”
- Aristotle

An important note about how intrinsically tied the relationship is between the education of youth with the success of the future.  Something I think that we forget all too often.

“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.”
- Jim Rohn

I think that what is being said here is that a degree will take you so far, but your own education and experience will take you much further.

“In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

I’ve got to be honest here, I love Nietzsche quotes.  He has a point with this quote, that public education is like institutional cooking… no love, care or technique applied. While it may be true, it can be up to the student to add the ‘salt and pepper”, and turn it into a good meal.

“The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.”
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton

I love this quote because I detest dogmatic educators.  Beware anyone who is dogmatic, because they hold you in contempt.  And a teacher who holds his students in contempt is a greater hindrance then no teacher at all.

“The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts but learning how to make facts live.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

There are a great many who have enough education to pass an exam, but it is the ones that take that knowledge and turn it into magic that are to be esteemed.  I think of the men and women involved with the early N.A.S.A. programs, who took their degrees and said “With this knowledge, we can accomplish something that man has quested for millennia.”

” Conservatives say teaching sex education in the public schools will promote promiscuity. With our public education system? If we promote promiscuity the same way we promote math or science, they’ve got nothing to worry about.”
- Beverly Mickens

I find this quote to be both funny and sad.  What is the old adage?  “The truth hurts.”

“Ye can lead a man up to the university, but you can’t make him think.”
- Finley Peter Dunne

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.”
- Chinese Proverb

I left these last two quotes for the end, because I feel that they have a special significance when it comes to online education degrees.  If you’re learning about getting your education degree online, then you’ve taken the first steps in a journey.  But once you’ve figured out what you’re goals are, where you’re going to go to achieve them, and how you are going to do that, you’re still left facing the journey itself.  It’s easy, when you’re taking an online education course, to say to yourself “I’ll get to the paper later, I’m going to watch some T.V. first.”  When you don’t have to face a professor and tell them that you don’t have the assignment finished by deadline you can find yourself procrastinating more.  The truth is that if you want to you want to finish an education degree and you want to teach others, you must first start by educating yourself.