State Auditor Shadrack White issued the following statement.
Mississippi’s average teacher salary is the lowest in the nation while the average cost-of-living-adjusted teacher salary is the third lowest according to a new report by the Mississippi Office of the State Auditor.
“My team found that even when you adjust for Mississippi’s low cost of living, teachers here are still some of the lowest paid in the nation,” said State Auditor Shad White. “We need to cut the amount of money spent on administration and bureaucracy and redirect that money to what actually matters: teacher salaries and inside-the-classroom spending.”
Mississippi’s public-school teachers are the lowest-paid in the country according to the most recent available data. Analysts at the State Auditor’s Office found that the average teacher salary in Mississippi today is worth less than a teacher’s salary from 2008 once you adjust for inflation.
Analysts also compared Mississippi teacher’s salaries to the salaries of teachers in places with higher costs of living. Mississippi teachers are paid less than teachers in any other state, even when you adjust for our state’s low cost of living. Mississippi’s cost of living is 12.7% lower than the national average yet even after adjusting for cost of living, Mississippi teacher salaries are still nearly $9,000 behind the national average.
Mississippi spends a larger percentage of its education budget on administration than every other state in the South. Previous reports from the Office of the State Auditor recommend that Mississippi redeploy excessive administrative and outside-the-classroom spending into teacher salaries. The Mississippi Legislature could also adopt a law proposed by State Auditor Shad White last year which requires 50% of the state’s K-12 education budget be spent on teacher salaries. This law would make Mississippi public-school teachers some of the highest-paid in the country.
“My team found that when you adjust for inflation, Mississippi’s teachers are paid less than they would have been during the Great Recession,” said Auditor White. “It’s past time for the state to put more money towards teacher salaries and classroom supplies, the things that make a difference for our students, and less money towards admin salaries.”
17 comments:
...water's wet. How much did that study cost?
Considering the hours worked, time off, PERS and health insurance, being a teacher in MS is still a good deal. But, there's always the option of not being a teacher.
Are teachers in Mississippi under paid? Yes but EVERYONE in Mississippi are underpaid not just teachers!
If the state auditor thinks teachers can barely survive on that kind of money he might want to take a poll of his staffs salaries. Love too the research doesn’t include things that affect cost of living like tariffs, healthcare prices, housing, etc. Credit to the staff who wrote the report and included the map that basically shows red states can’t pay teachers and recommended following *checks notes* California for an example.
Why are our schools bad? Students are too stupid to learn? Parents are too lazy to read to their kids? Teachers are running out the clock until they can retire/go on summer vacation in Cozumel?
6:05 Those of us in red states will miss you.
Teachers shouldn’t get raises apart from all state employees getting raises. But it looks good for politicians to want to pay them more when the truth is that none of the increased pay will make a single student better educated.
Translation: Shad wants to be Governor
Public Teacher salaries are not the problem in education. What are private school teachers paid and why are those students better educated? Shad, are your children and your staff’s children attending Public Schools?
Newsflash: Teachers don’t make a lot of money. So if you’re too stupid to figure that out during the FOUR YEARS of college, you are too stupid to teach children anything.
The REAL reason there's a teacher shortage is this: They aren't paid nearly enough to stay quiet about the intolerable system they have to put up with (i.e., zero discipline expected of students due to worthless parents), and what they are forced to look the other way about out of fear for their jobs (i.e., factual attendance numbers are obscenely inflated to keep funding flush). Far too many have seen that they do not have to tolerate these abuses, and are rapidly spreading the word to young adults - "You don't want to major in education, much less teach in Mississippi's corrupt school system". It's not really about the pay itself - it's about how much they're paid IN RELATION to the horseshit they have to eat each day, while expected to keep a smile on their face. Thems the fact folks.
The auditor's office should be limited to conducting audits and investigating frauds and prohibited from being a vehicle to promote the auditor's political ambitions and therefore wasting taxpayer dollars.
Teachers have been complaining about their compensation forever. My father was on a local board of education in the 60s and they were moaning and groaning then. They seem to be the only people in the country who do not understand that if your employment doesn’t pay enough then you find something that will pay better. In any event, as it is these public school teachers are doing a terrible job in many places, such as Jackson. Why should they be paid more?
When I was in college in the late 80's, they recommended that if you could not pass in biology, business, engineering, etc. go to the school of education, make you wonder why pay not so good, but on other hand you have to consider the time off, and PERS benefit, really pay not that terrible especially since you now get tuition costs covered and enhanced degrees masters and up get you more pay.
Most everyone in every field not a trade is being underpaid to some degree in the Sip. Learn to weld or pipefit.
God forbid you people need nurses to care for your whiney asses when you're old.
I--for one--prefer to receive care from someone with reasonably fundamental education. If MS pays teachers less than those in our border states, we'll only be able to attract the lowest-quality teachers, who will in turn produce even lower quality students while administrators make bank and pass contracts to consultants.
I don't care how much teachers or anyone else in government actually makes, but the wages we pay should at least be competitive with our border states.
@5:14 hours worked and time off?? My wife is a teacher and she spends 10 hours a day at her school and does school work after hours and on weekends. Not to mention dealing with 25 kids all day. If you don’t support teachers, go spend a day in one of their classrooms.
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