North Carolina's increases to teacher pay are being outpaced by most of the rest of the nation, a new report released Tuesday shows.
The new report from the National Education Association — the nation's largest teachers' union — ranked North Carolina 43rd in the U.S. in average teacher pay ($58,292) and 39th in the U.S. in beginning teacher pay ($42,542), based on salaries collected from across the country for the 2023-24 school year. The state dropped five spots in the average teacher pay rankings but hopped three spots in beginning teacher pay.
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Since that school year, state legislatures have raised pay further. In North Carolina, first-year teacher salaries are $2,000 higher this year, rising from $39,000 to $41,000. Increases for more experienced teachers have been smaller and vary by years of service. Teachers earn more than the base state pay, either through a state salary supplement for their county or through a county-provided supplement, paid out as additional salary or a bonus. The state supplement doesn't cover teachers in the state's five largest counties.
The report notes that North Carolina teachers earn 75 cents to the dollar that similarly college-educated graduates earn in the state, what the NEA calls the "teacher pay gap."
In North Carolina, teacher turnover has risen, with about one in ten teachers leaving the profession in the state the past couple of school years. Turnover is worst for teachers in their first three years. North Carolina is increasingly relying on international faculty and people switching careers to become teachers.
National average beginning teacher pay was $46,526 during the 2023-24 school year, according to the NEA. Average teacher pay nationally, at all experience levels, was $72,030. While that number has steadily risen, the group notes that inflation has risen faster. That means teachers have less buying power now than they did at their peak before the onset of the Great Recession in 2009.
That finding has been echoed by more groups than just NEA.
BestNC, an education nonprofit comprised of members of the state's business community, found that the average teacher pay in 2023-24 had less buying power than average pay even just a few years ago, per its annual school statistics report released this week.
Both BestNC and the North Carolina Association of Educators — the state's NEA chapter — have different views on how to change teacher pay, however.
Both want to raise teacher pay, but NCAE wants to get rid of the state's flattened pay scale for teachers with 15 or more years of service. That flattened pay scale results in much smaller year-to-year raises for the state's most experienced teachers.
BestNC, by contrast, is focused on raising early-career teacher pay to get less experienced teachers to their pay peak more quickly, which was the original rationale lawmakers had in flattening the payscale to begin with. But BestNC also supports raising teacher pay for those in teacher leadership roles, which the group wants to expand.