Colorado Near The Bottom In U.S. Teacher Pay

PHOENIX, AZ – From West Virginia to Arizona, the topic of teacher pay has become the most discussed educational topic other than school safety. The teachers in West Virginia went on strike for nine days.

According to the NEA, Colorado has the 46th lowest average salary for teachers in the country at $46,155. But it's better than last year, when Colorado teachers earned the 49th lowest salary in the U.S. at $44,421. The average Colorado teacher salary actually increased 3.9 percent in 2016 from the year before, the second largest increase in the country, after California.

Denver Public School teachers won a last-minute extension of their contract last week, when Denver School District agreed to extend the current pay-for-performance agreement until January 2019. A teachers strike was "on the table" union leaders said, before the last-minute agreement. Now some Colorado school districts (including District 27J covering Adams County and part of Broomfield) are moving to a four-day week to keep expenses down.

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.
"I actually laughed when I saw the old salary vs. the new one," she wrote on Facebook. I mean, really, I need a college degree for this? I paid 80,000 for a college degree, I then paid several hundred more to transfer my certification to Az.
"I buy every roll of tape I use, every paper clip I use, every sharpie I grade with, every snack I feed kids who don't have them."

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

Patch researched how Milich's salary compares to the average in Arizona and the rest of the country.

The National Education Association – the largest national teacher's organization – says that her salary is well below the state's average of $47,218.

The NEA's research shows that 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.

"No one goes into teaching for the money," Milich wrote. "But we do need to eat and have a home!
"I'm sad for my single mom teacher friends working 3 jobs to make ends meet!"
Photo via ShutterStock.