Nationally, the average starting salary for a public school teacher is $42,844, according to a National Education Association report on the 2021-’22 school year. In Pennsylvania, it’s $47,827.
Also nationally, the average salary for a public school teacher is $66,745, according to an NEA report from 2023. And in Pennsylvania, it’s $72,073.
The commonwealth ranks 11th in the nation in both categories.
Pennsylvania is a pretty good state to be a teacher in. Yet it’s still attracting far fewer college graduates to the profession than it did a decade ago, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
New data from the Department of Education shows a 73% decline in the number of teachers entering the profession between 2012-’13 and 2021-’22. That number has gotten worse over time, too. In 2015-’16, 9,600 Instructional 1 teaching certificates were issued to in-state graduates. By 2016-’17, that number dropped to 5,404. In 2021-’22, it was 5,101. And from 2010-’11 to 2020-’21, the number of emergency permits issued rose by more than 200%.
“It definitely is a crisis,” said Chris Lilienthal, a Pennsylvania State Education Association spokesperson. “School districts are having an increasingly difficult time filling teaching positions, and they are relying on teachers who aren’t fully certified.”
For years, teachers had a high public approval rating, according to Lilienthal. That changed a little in the early 2010s with the rise of the Tea Party movement and its emphasis on diverting public funds to school vouchers. And as the cost of college tuition continues to rise, teacher salaries have not gone up with it.
“They haven’t gone up as fast as other fields have,” Lilienthal said.
Pennsylvania’s high-ranking starting and average salaries mask a more difficult reality underneath. In wealthy suburban districts, Pennsylvania’s teacher pay is better than many other states. But in lower-income cities and rural areas, it is often lower.
“More affluent suburban districts tend not to be experiencing the shortage,” said Ed Fuller, a professor of education at Penn State University. “It’s underfunded school districts that serve lots of kids in poverty and lots of kids of color.”
The public perception issue is hard to quantify, but it is there, according to Lilienthal. The Tea Party movement started “this questioning of the public education experience and this finger-pointing at teachers,” he said. Later in the decade, then-President Donald Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, “favored private schools,” he adds. And then in 2020, COVID led to backlash from the right over school masking policies and other restrictions, and that “transformed school board races” and led to the rise of certain candidates who tried to limit what teachers could teach in the classroom, the spokesman explained.
It all “contributed to a decline of young people pursuing the career,” he said.
The teacher pay issue is easier to quantify. An Economic Policy Institute report from 2022 found that the “teacher wage penalty” between education and other similarly educated professions was 23.5% nationally and 15.2% in Pennsylvania. In 1996, the national difference was just 6.1%.
In Pennsylvania, the minimum starting salary for a public school teacher is $18,500. Some teachers in the state make less than $30,000, according to Fuller. Many get paid less than $40,000.
The Penn State professor said there’s a perception among his students that the pay and working conditions are not very good in teaching. They also recognize that it does not have the prestige that it once did.
“When you look at all those things, why would you want to be a teacher?” he asked.
“It’s a very stressful job, and you can go and make more money at Costco,” Lilienthal added.
At the same time, more than 5,000 people still went into teaching in 2021-’22. And according to two University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg students, Amber Bloom and Emily Jett, the mission is still attractive to service-minded young people.
Bloom, a senior and the incoming vice president for the Student PSEA, wants to be a teacher because she had one with the same name in fourth grade. The woman gave her a stamp that said “Amber” on it. Every day when Bloom came in, she looked at the stamp on her desk.
“I knew that somebody was there for me,” Bloom said.
Bloom wants to be that person for her students. She hopes to teach fourth grade. “I want them to know that there’s someone who supports them and wants what is best for them,” she said.
She has considered the difficulties facing the profession, but she is not deterred. “If I impact one kid, then it’s worth it,” she said.
Jett, also a senior and the incoming president of the Student PSEA, admits that she was one of those kids who liked going to school and doing homework. Later in her childhood, the Philadelphia-area resident taught at a swim school, and she watched the lightbulb go off in students’ minds when they connected a lesson to their actions in the pool.
“Watching that was like nothing I ever felt before,” she said.
Now, she tutors, helps run a before- and after-school program and teaches at a summer camp. “Every day I get that same feeling,” she said.
Her goal is to teach elementary school.
“Even just to teach [kids] simpler things like manners, how to tie their shoe, all these life skills that they are going to need for the rest of their life,” she explained.
Many of Jett’s family members are teachers, and they told her not to go into the profession, with sentiments such as: You’re not going to get paid anything. You’ll be disrespected by the kids. You’ll have to bring work home with you.
Jett listened. One summer, she went to a law and science camp in Washington, D.C. “It didn’t give me the same feeling,” she said.
Now, her family supports her decision. “I am really happy,” she said.
There are policy options for Pennsylvania to inspire more Blooms and Jetts, according to Lilienthal. Raising the minimum salary. A stipend for the 12-week student teaching period. A scholarship for education students who agree to stay in the state after graduation.
State Rep. Patty Kim, a Democrat who serves Pennsylvania’s 103rd district, covering parts of Dauphin and Cumberland counties, has introduced legislation to set starting salaries at $50,000 and then $60,000 within five years. It’s like a bill in Arkansas signed by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders earlier this year that raised teacher pay to $50,000.
“Having a salary of $60,000 is a huge improvement,” Kim said. “And then elevating the actual profession. Talking about it and pushing for a higher salary makes teachers feel valued.”
Kim said her legislation “still has a ways to go.” She is looking to build momentum for it in the fall when schools start again.
How will she do that? “We keep bringing up the issue,” she said.
