PA Average Teacher Salaries Rank Among Nation's Highest

PITTSBURGH, PA - From West Virginia to Pennsylvania, the topic of teacher pay has become the most discussed educational topic other than school safety.

Teachers in West Virginia went on strike for nine days; teachers in Pittsburgh recently came close to striking for the first time in more than four decades before reaching a tentative agreement on a new contract.

According to the National Education Association, Pennsylvania has 10th highest average salary for teachers in the country. The average salary increased 1.10 percent between 2015 and 2016, the most recent years statistics were available.

In 2015, the average teacher salary was $64,497. The average rose to $65,151 in 2016.
According to the NEA, the nation’s largest teachers organization, the average teacher salary around the country is $58,353. That was up 1.3 percent from 2015.

New York had the highest average salary in 2016 at $79,152 and South Dakota had the lowest at $42,025.
The state with the highest average salaries:

1.New York: $79,152
2. California: $77,179
3. Massachusetts: $76,981
4.District of Columbia: $75,810
5. Connecticut $72,013
6. New Jersey: $69,330
7. Alaska: $67,443
8. Maryland: $66,456
9. Rhode Island: $66,197
10. Pennsylvania: $65,151

Teacher salaries aren’t on the rise everywhere. In Arizona, the average salary decreased .5 percent in 2016 from the year before, the largest decrease in the country.

An Arizona teacher went on Facebook last week to draw attention to low pay and working conditions that she said are in desperate need of improvement.

"Something must be done," wrote Elisabeth Milich, a second-grade teacher in Paradise Valley outside of Phoenix. "Otherwise our poor children will be taught by unqualified, burned out, and just plain bad teachers!"

Milich's post included her recent pay stub to show just how much she makes. The stub highlights what he annual salary was and what it will be now that she has taken some professional development classes. Her salary went to $35,621.25 from $35,490.00.

Milich wrote that without her husband's income, she could never afford to be a teacher in Arizona.

Photo via Shutterstock.