By Lauren Musu-Gillette and Tom Snyder
Teachers play the primary role in the delivery of elementary and secondary instruction. About half of all public school staff were teachers and an additional 12 percent of staff were instructional aides in 2012. NCES collects a wide range of information related to teaching and teachers. One topic of high interest to current and potential teachers, as well as school officials, is the average salary for teachers. In fact, some of the most frequently visited tables on the Digest of Education Statistics webpage are those tables that present data on teachers’ salaries.
Data on teacher compensation and salaries are available from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), collected by NCES. Salary data from this survey can be presented by teachers’ characteristics, such as sex, race/ethnicity, and years of full-time teaching experience. For example, in 2011-12 the average base salary for full-time teachers was $53,070. In addition, about 42 percent of full time teachers received supplemental pay for activities such as coaching, student activity sponsorship, or teaching evening classes, with an average value of $2,530. Some teachers had additional earnings from bonuses and summer employment.
Teachers with more years of experience or higher levels of education received higher salaries on average. For teachers with one year or less of full-time teaching experience, the base salary for full-time teachers in 2011-12 was $40,540 compared to $64,820 for teachers with 30 or more years of experience. Data are also presented on base salary by highest degree earned. Teachers with a master’s degree and 30 to 34 years of experience had an average salary of $69,420 compared to an average of $58,510 for those teachers with a bachelor’s degree and the same amount of experience. Overall, teachers with a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree earned less in 2011-12 than in 1990-91, after adjusting for inflation. Average salaries are also available by state for teachers with a bachelor’s degree as their highest degree, or a master’s degree as their highest degree.
More recent information using estimated salaries show salary trends over a longer time period for teachers at both the state and national level in current and constant dollars. For example, the estimated average teacher salary at the national level in constant 2012-13 dollars was $39,329 in 1959-60, $57,152 in 1989-90, and $56,383 in 2012-13.