The National Education Association 鈥攁nd the gap between teachers with the highest salary in the country and teachers with the lowest salary in the country has grown. New York remains on the top of the list, and Mississippi replaces South Dakota at the bottom.
The average public school teacher salary for 2016-17 was $59,660鈥攗p from $58,353 in 2015-16. The NEA estimated that the average salary for this school year (2017-18) is $60,483.
It seems like teacher pay is steadily increasing鈥攂ut the NEA found that when inflation is taken into account, the average teacher salary has actually decreased by 4 percent from 2008-09 to 2017-18.
The issue of teacher pay has been a battleground for teachers across the country, sparking statewide strikes and walkouts in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and now, Arizona. West Virginia teachers after their nine-day strike, and Oklahoma teachers . Arizona teachers, who are planning to walk out on Thursday, are .
See also: Teacher Pay: How Salaries, Pensions, and Benefits Work in 69传媒
In the 2016-17 data, all but two states鈥擶est Virginia and New Mexico鈥攕aw their salaries rise. Teachers in South Dakota saw the largest bump in pay鈥攁n increase of 11.8 percent. The state had ranked dead last in average teacher salary from 1986 to 2017. Now, South Dakota is ranked 48th in the nation.
The state鈥檚 governor, Dennis Daugaard, applauded the news, saying that the state had convened a task force to make teachers鈥� salaries competitive. (For more on South Dakota鈥檚 efforts to raise teacher pay, see this Education Week story.)
鈥淲e also sent an important message to our teachers鈥攖hat we value the work they do, that three decades in last place was enough, and that we were willing to step up to improve their salaries,鈥� Daugaard said.
Here are the rankings for all 50 states and the District of Columbia:
The NEA鈥檚 salary data isn鈥檛 the only source of teacher pay data鈥攖he federal government also compiles data. The numbers are typically close to each other. NEA typically aggregates state-level data.
NPR recently looked at . The comparison is interesting鈥攆or example, Mississippi is ranked 37th after the adjustment.
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