What does a typical 10 year veteran high school teacher in one of the top 20 cities in the U.S. earn?
What does a fresh out of school new hire make?
Are there differentials for teaching high school seniors physics versus teaching second grade general what-you-need-to-know-if-you’re-gonna-grow-up stuff?
What’s the high end?
And, do public or private school teachers make more?
I can’t really speak to the numbers (my wife is the teacher not me), but I’ll tell you that pay is strictly based on seniority and level of education. So anyone in the school district with a master’s degree and 5 years of education will make the same salary whether they teach 1st grade or AP Chemistry to 12th graders. The rationale being (I would assume) that teaching requires a certain amount of skill and effort regardless of age group, it’s just that the specific challenges are different.
I don’t know specific numbers, but in Texas, it depends upon your school district and your experience. In the Houston area, Aldine ISD is one of the highest paying districts, followed by, I believe Fort Bend ISD. I believe you can top off in those districts at around $50,000 to $55,000. Most districts will have a flat pay scale based upon your experience, but will offer a bonus if you teach math, science, special education, or languages, depending upon their demand.
Are you currently in HISD and looking to make a switch? My mother is a teacher and she left Aldine after 20 years and took a $3000 pay cut simply to be in a better work environment.
If you belong to a educator organization, they can probably provide you with hard numbers on the best-paying districts.
I don’t know about anywhere else but here in WV public school teachers make more than private (as a general rule).
Speaking from a small rural community in Colorado, I know that starting teachers here make right around $21,000. They get additional percentages for other activities (four percent for head football, three percent for head basketball, one percent for speech team, one percent for drama club, etc.).
After about ten years if they haven’t picked up additional degrees they might be in the $35,000 range. I should add that many schools do not give full credit for time spent teaching if you move from another district. For instance, in the local district once again; the most they will give anyone is five years experience credit.
Once again this is a small rural school district and I am sure that large cities pay more.
Speaking from a small rural community in Colorado, I know that starting teachers here make right around $21,000. They get additional percentages for other activities (four percent for head football, three percent for head basketball, one percent for speech team, one percent for drama club, etc.).
After about ten years if they haven’t picked up additional degrees they might be in the $35,000 range. I should add that many schools do not give full credit for time spent teaching if you move from another district. For instance, in the local district once again; the most they will give anyone is five years experience credit.
Once again this is a small rural school district and I am sure that large cities pay more.
I believe the new teacher’s union contract in NYC has them starting at around $39,000. They can make a lot more with seniority.
NYC also helps pay for teachers to get advanced degrees.
And they get a considrable bit more on the island.
More info on NYC:
Certified teachers now start at $39,000, and can make up to $81,000 ( :eek: ) with 22 years seniority and advanced degrees (which the school district will help pay for.)
http://www.teachny.com/salary_new/Salary%20Schedule%20for%20Certified%20Teachers.htm
In my district, north of Seattle, starting teachers with an M.A. make around $25,000. After 10 years, they would be making around $43,000. But there is wild variation among the “top 20 cities in the US,” depending on what state they are in. California, Connecticut, and New Jersey were ranked #1, #2, and #3 in a recent survey, if memory serves. The lowest paid states were Mississippi, Oklahoma, and the Dakotas.
And, as other posters have said, public school teachers are generally better compensated than private school teachers because they are required by the state to be certified.
Here’s the pay scale in the school district I went to high school in:
http://www2.smsd.org/staff/operations/hr/tsalary.shtm
Bottom line: It’s $31,188 coming straight in with a BS and it’s $62,429 after 26 years of experience and holding a Doctorate.
As you can see, there is a considerable variation in income for teachers, but the basic format of the salary scale remains the same: it’s all based on level of education and years of teaching experience.*
*Teaching experience is limited to 5 years if you switch districts. So when, for example, my family moved from Indiana (where my mother had taught for 10 years) to California, she was started at Step 5 in her new district–not 10.
The variation in starting salaries depends on where you teach. It’s an interesting inverse relationship–the poorer teh area, the higher the salary. The main reason for this is incentive; who’d want to teach in Watts for $22,000 a year? Not enough. So, salary scales in more challenging areas are often higher. When I started teaching 6 1/2 years ago, I was making $23,000. I soon learned that by moving to L.A. County, practically no matter what district I chose, I’d get at least a $10,000 pay raise. In fact, I have well more than doubled my starting salary by teaching in the district I do. From what I recall, Step 1 Column A (B.A. only, first year of teaching) in my district starts off at $40,000. Step 12 Column E (12 years’ experience, Master’s Degree) maxes out at about $75,000 I believe. However, Step 12E is supposed to be double 1A, so a change is a-coming there.
It is fortunate for me that I want to work with low-income immigrant families. It is the population I truly wish to work with. That said, comparing it to the 2 years I taught in a suburban higher-middle class area, the higher income is earned. The stress factor–for all variety of reasons–is considerably higher.
Los Angeles Unified School District pays more than my district…but, they could not pay me enough. Phoo.
I don’t know about private schools in general, but Catholic schools pay pitifully less than public schools (when they pay at all: The priests, brothers, and nuns who teach may not be paid any more at all than those who don’t). Even so, my mom quickly came to regret switching from the Catholic schools to public: As Ruffian said, there’s a very big difference in the stress levels.
On the other hand, there are also the extreme-upper-crust hoity-toity private college prep schools, where (I gather) teachers can make considerably more. Of course, such schools are very selective in who they hire, too.