NEA Reports School Wage/Spending Data
Teacher Pay
The report references the TEA’s officially reported 2020-21 average budgeted Texas public school teacher pay of $57,641, a 1 percent increase from last school year (see TEN, April 12).
That’s $7,449 less than the $65,090 national average teacher pay projected for this school year by the NEA. The highest estimated average teacher pay for this school year was reported in New York ($87,738), followed by Massachusetts ($86,315).
From School Year 2018-19 to 2019-20 (the first year the massive HB3 funding increases took effect), Texas moved up in the NEA’s final rankings — from 29th to 27th — nationally in highest average teacher pay.
The NEA affiliated Texas State Teachers Association (TSTA) lamented in a statement on the report’s findings that reflected — that from 2019 to 2020 — Texas fell further behind the nation not only in teacher pay, but in per-student spending.
Per-Student Funding
TSTA noted that the report reflects that Texas now trails the national average in per-student funding per average daily attendance (ADA) by nearly $3,300, dropping the state from 37th last school year to 39th this school year.
Texas expenditures per ADA increased from $11,770 in 2019-20 to an estimated $11,947 (1.5 percent) in 2020-21, while the national average expenditure per ADA increased from $14,602 to $15,240, or about 4.37 percent, almost three times Texas’ rate, TSTA noted.
“As we have said before, House Bill 3 was only a down payment on real school finance reform in Texas, and now, only two years later, we are falling farther behind,” TSTA President Ovidia Molina said.
The NEA report, which has been published for more than 70 years, contains thousands of education data points.