The Truth About Teaching Salaries

An average of forty-five percent of staffed, salaried teachers leave the profession after five years. Twenty percent, in urban areas, leave after their first year. Sixty-two percent of surveyed teachers have to work a second job to make a livable income. The yearly turnaround will cost the United States over $7 billion.

Why is all of this happening?

Credit to: Forbes

For the most part, we can point at the salary. The average first-year salary for a public school teacher (private schools obviously pay higher) is $39,000 and can eventually increase to $65,000-$70,000 after your twenty-fifth year, which is when some teachers end their career. On average, they make fourteen percent less than professionals in other fields that hold salaried positions. McKinsey polled 900 college students and found that 68 percent would "consider teaching if salaries started at $65,000 and rose to a minimum of $150,000." That survey tells you enough about to know that a backdoor problem is visible.

In comparison to South Korea, the government hires and trains staffed teachers and pays them 250% more in terms of currency balance. The yearly teacher turnover there is only just more than one percent.

In the next ten years, about half of the total teaching population (estimated 1.5 million) will retire. Who's going to replace them? Will college students shift their majors in a supply-and-demand stance? Will the increase in need of qualified teachers cause a needed salary increase?

- Joe

Statistics contributed to the New York Times