Only 25% of TN Teachers Earn More Than $60,000/year
Only 25% of TN Teachers Earn More Than $60,000/year
Teacher salary in the Volunteer State lags near the bottom in the nation
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A recent tweet by the Teacher Salary Project displayed a disturbing graphic. The move comes as President Joe Biden and some in Congress are seeking to ensure that average teacher pay in America is at least $60,000 a year.
The graphic shown in the tweet shows the percentage of teachers in each state who currently earn more than $60,000/year.
Tennessee is where Tennessee always is - near the very bottom.
Here’s the full graphic:
Only 25% of Tennessee’s teachers currently earn more than $60,000/year. Only 7 states trail Tennessee in this number.
Based on Tennessee’s policy trends, this is not surprising.
The state has long faced a looming teacher shortage - a shortage that has now arrived. And teachers in the state make nearly 30% less than similarly educated professionals.
A new study of teacher pay relative to pay received by other, similarly educated workers reveals a growing gap. Not surprisingly, teachers are on the losing end, earning roughly 23% less than their peers in other professions. Here in Tennessee, teachers earn 29.3% less than similarly-prepared professionals.
Tennessee’s wage gap for teachers is among the worst in the Southeast, in fact. The average of 11 southern states is a 26.5% gap, leaving Tennessee nearly three points behind.
That was back in 2016. The numbers today still show a roughly 25% gap.
While Gov. Bill Lee has promised a 4% teacher pay increase this year and an eventual starting minimum salary of $50,000, policy advocates have pointed out that even with Lee’s proposed raise, the state’s teachers still trail teachers in Alabama when it comes to compensation:
Add to that the fact that Tennessee’s teacher pension is among the lowest in the Southeast, and you have a situation which is not exactly encouraging for entering or remaining in the teaching profession.
The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) is out with a report on teacher compensation across the region. Not surprisingly, teacher compensation in the South is about 16% below the national average. Of course, Tennessee teacher compensation lags behind even the average in our region. We are low in a region that is low.
Not only is Tennessee behind other states when it comes to compensation, but Tennessee also has the lowest annual pension benefit for retired teachers. So, we pay teachers at a rate that is somewhat below average and in retirement, our teachers earn less than all their counterparts in our neighboring states.
Tennessee teachers earn a pension that is about $10,000 a year lower than the Southeastern average.
Meanwhile, policymakers in the state toy with rejecting federal education funding rather than investing our state’s multi-billion-dollar surplus into public education programs.