A complaint that is heard far too often is that there needs to be more money put in to schools, because by golly, our teachers simply aren't paid enough to deal with this current generation of students. I imagine this argument isn't a new one, and in fact goes back nearly to the day that Horace Mann helped found Westfield State University (nee "Westfield Normal School") as "the people's college" way back in 1838. With the advent of social media, and the need to fill 24 hour news cycles every single hour of every single day, we all are aware of how underpaid teachers are.
However, I feel the question must be asked, are they really underpaid? I posit this question as someone who has recently completed the requirements to gain my initial license within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
To begin to answer the question, I looked at the average salary for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the most recent year I could find it (2011-2012), and found, not surprisingly, that the numbers simply don't bear that out. Of the approximately 325 school districts spread out throughout the Commonwealth, only one (1!) district has an average salary that is less than $51,109. How the good people of Florida, MA manage to keep their average teacher salary at just a touch over $37,000 I don't know. Perhaps they've brainwashed their teachers in to thinking that they're teaching in the state of Florida, and they're only a stone's throw away from the nearest beach. What I do know is that they are definitively an outlier, as the average teacher salary within the Commonwealth is just a touch under $71,000.
Many people complain that this simply isn't enough for what teachers do, and the impact that they have on young students who are in their charge. While what teachers do in the classroom (good teachers, at least) cannot be quantified, the expense in terms of dollars and cents easily can be.
I had a professor who put forth a statistic as if it was a fact (it was a class where I expect she knew what she was talking about) that stated that if you netted over $35,000 in a year, you were in the top 1% of wage earners world wide. That would seem to jibe with what wikipedia has to say on the topic. The list on wikipedia also notes that the average salary in the United States as of 2012 is roughly $55,000, or just about $16,000 short of what the average teacher in the Commonwealth earns.
For those that might argue that the pay scale is top-heavy, and new teachers are vastly underpaid by comparison, I'm here to tell you, that's simply not true. As I have been applying out for jobs over the last few months, I have not been able to find a "full-time" teaching position that pays less than just under $42,000 (and even with that, there are bonuses if you're willing to teach in certain districts that increase that pay level.) I'll grant, I've pointedly avoided Florida, MA, but still, I have not been able to find a job that pays less than that. For 10 months (9, really) worth of work. Sure, there may be some 'long' days (I have a hard time listening to conversations about 'long' days, when the school day is less than 7 hours long.) It's a good gig, if you can get it.
So the next time you hear someone complaining about how underpaid teachers are, I beg you to remember that in the Commonwealth of MA (and likely everywhere else, too), teachers are part of the 1%.
