Florida

Putting Education Reform To The Test

Mapping Average Teacher Salary Change in Florida

August 31, 2011 | 2:13 PM
By Matt Stiles

This map visualizes how much the average teacher’s salary has changed since the 2007-08 school year. Darker reds represent deeper pay cuts, while darker greens represent larger salary increases. Click on individual counties to see more specific information about their teachers’ average salaries.

Inspiration and data via The News Service of Florida.

NOTE: A previous version of this map showed only teachers with bachelor’s degrees. The current version shows all teachers. 

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Comments

  • RCS

    Shame on Florida!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000411553256 Joseph Huber

    I worked (notice the past tense?) in one of the deepest red districts. Not feeling so bad about being laid off now.

  • Mistermysteryguy

    Looks to me like the highly populated counties got paid less and the less populated counties got paid more. Am I misunderstanding this, or should I just have even less faith in this state than I did before?

  • Matt Stiles

    Mistermysteryguy: The answer is yes and no.

    There does seem to be a bit of visual correspondence between salary increases and population in urban areas, but take a look at South Florida. Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach are the most-populous counties in the state, according to the last year’s census. Broward cut pay, while the other two increase it.

    I’ve attached a side-by-side view of a quick census map and the teacher pay map. (Darker shades in the population map represent more residents). Check them out and tell us what you think.

    Thanks for the comment!

    • Irishrose8585

      I am a teacher in palm beach and I can tell you we have not had a pay raise in 4 yrs!

      • Anonymous

        Irishrose,

        You raise a good point: A district’s average salary can increase without anyone earning a pay raise. If the district lays off its lowest-paid employees, the average salary will rise.

        • Dirhart

          Average pay is also affected by age and experience of teachers.  It is skewed quite a bit by the simple use of the pay scale in counties to figure it, which can average the top of the scale (30 years experience with a Ph.D—very few are in this category) with the bottom (0 years with B.A.– thus giving an “average” which is way above what most teachers are actually making.  The average mentioned in the map for our county would take around ten years to achieve.

  • http://twitter.com/FatherGator Mike Poller

    Miami-Dade saw the writing on the wall and

  • http://twitter.com/FatherGator Mike Poller

    Miami-Dade saw the writing on the wall in 2008 and began a slow and steady belt-tightening. Got rid of a lot of middle-management, did not rush to replace retiring workers, stopped some school construction plans. Broward School Board kept kicking can down the road until they simply ran out of road this year.

  • Scubus

    Why would anyone come and teach in this state?

    A merit pay system that has no money for pay (but millions going to standardized test development).

    Longer hours and additional classes to teach. With no increase in compensation of course.

    Loss of due process protections.

    More and more standardized tests that are not good for students, tell us nothing about how well a teacher teaches and very little about how well a student has learned.

    A merit pay system based on faulty math and that have been shown to be ineffective and actually harmful in virtually every study and are being abandoned in places that have tried similar systems. But not before decimating teaching ranks.

    Loss of the pension and decent insurance that made teaching not lucrative, but stable and kept a family safe. Again, with no corresponding increase in compensation.

    The exodus of good teachers has already started. If the economy improves much it will pick up steam. Most teachers are well educated and adaptable. They don’t HAVE to teach — they just love doing it. But they still have to raise their own families…

    • Godago

      Maybe Those of us who teach here aren’t in it for the Money, and make the most of the conditions coming by focusing on steweardship of resources & empowering students to know what resiliency really is.

      • Dirhart

        There is truth here.  I don’t know anybody who figured on making a lot of money in teaching, but the pressures of providing for family, etc. are there and get bigger as kids get older, etc.  Dedication doesn’t put food on the table, and the economy in better times does provide lots of better opportunities (with lots less work). It is tough at the end of your career, no matter how fulfilled you feel, to wonder if you slighted your own children to help children.

      • Scubus

        Sounds great.  Which part of that is going to feed my son or pay the rent?

        Like it or not, teaching is still a job, and people, even the most noble, need to be compensated for their work.

  • Anonymous

    Thanks for this analysis, Mr. Stiles.

    As a (fortunately) retired Miami-Dade public teacher, I find it pathetic that most of these salaries do not even warrant COLA increases…insulting. Additionally, the state is now subtracting 3% toward retirement pensions, and didn’t grandfather in those employees who had understood this benefit to have been a perk for years of relatively low “professional” pay. (Oh, and please don’t forget that a new merit pay system, threatening to further decrease base salaries, is also being implemented across the state, based on insufficient data reliant on a poorly written measuring instrument, the notorious FCAT.)

    I’m curious, do these salary averages include charter school teachers? I ask since this growing wave of state-supported privatization hires teachers who, in many instances, are paid lower than the public sector teachers. (The charter school movement is another controversial HUGE issue that warrants massive investigation…“Contract? We don’t need no stinkin’ contract!”)

    Again, thanks, I will be sending this map to former colleagues,
    Jo

  • Paobstew

    It is not just Florida. This is a nationwide problem. A bigger problem to come is: Who in their right mind will want to make education their career?

    • Godago

      I came into Education as a second career after a post-collegiate high paying managment company offered me the opportunity to meet a lot of people lacking basic problem solving skils, critical thinking skills, abilities to infer, or clarity to step back and see the big picture. I’ve had the opportunity to meet more than a dozen other educators like myself, who are operating from a different place than most education majors out there. We Are In our RIGHT MIND, for we SEE IT RIGHT, and are doing something about it.

      Besides Blogging, what are you doing about it Paobstew?

  • Lbalazs

    I would like to see the actual pay ranges.

    • Georginamae

      Maybe actual pay ranges of teachers and a column for actual pay ranges for Administration & District Office staff?

      • Anonymous

        Lbalazs and Georginamae,

        Stay tuned. We’re compiling that information now.

        • Scout

          Most counties post the pay scale on their websites… They’re not a
          Ways easy to find, though. But don’t think any of the teachers in Brevard are at the right pay scale for their years of service. That’s right, service! We are public servants, which is why we do not have the same rights as private sector employees. I’ve been teaching for 8 years and I’m still getting 3rd year pay.

  • Lol

    gdxhnhgdhgd

  • Lol

    There are no intelligent students to teach anyways.….….….….…

    • concon

      Especially if they’re like you.

    • Dirhart

      Not true at all.

  • CBrown

    Deeper pay cuts, yes, a nationwide problem, though that appears more evident in the so-called Red states and in the case of Florida, the so-called Blue-leaning counties. Perhaps the underlying purpose is to eliminate public education and make education available on an affordable basis. Perhaps the purpose is to eliminate the principles of John Dewey and civic democracy in favor of neat little boxes of control. Perhaps yes, perhaps not.

    Some schools are leasing their frontage signs to commercial interests in exchange for cash. On the one hand, great for parents who want to advertise their services, on the other hand, ethical questions of influence and power come to mind.

    Do we want a nation of followers or leaders? We cannot all be leaders, though we should aim to educate all as leaders. Some will choose following, though I suspect we will educate more leaders and brilliant inbetweeners who will choose to follow when appropriate.

    Thing is, regardless of comments, apparently, Floridians liked the Perry history and chose to be followers. With voting changes in the state now, the choice to lead or follow, or even be an inbetweener may no longer be available to many voters, and followers they may remain.

  • Schnursenkel89

    The dark red colors group in two large of a variable (-15% to –2%) when in fact there is only one county that went down –15% (Broward). There should be a –5% to –2% to be more accurate. Then it won’t appear as instantly bad as it does right now because the only county that would be darker would be Broward.

    Regardless, spending redistribution is a bunch of bull-honkey anyway because its based off the false system of the FCAT. Why did my Leon County have to drop 4%?

  • Georginamae

    This visual is misleading in that it does not highlight the main reason for and increase — longevity — not contract pay increase.

    • Matt Stiles

      The map isn’t intended to display the “reason” for increases or decreases. It just visualizes the change over time. This is just one piece of content in a running discussion here about education. Stay tuned as our reporters explore issues like the one you cite. Thanks for your comment.

      • Jet Pilot

        Any chance on showing one for California. My guess is it’s just as bad if not worse.

  • Keri

    What about layoffs in the last year per county?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RAXTYBYOQE7HSIJXHV3VBQIJ5E nine_eight

    What a misleading map! Shame on you, NPR. There are TWO codes for pay cuts, and it’s 0–2 percent and then 2–15 percent. There are 4 grades for pay increases, and 3 of them cover the 2–15 percent range. If you made the pay increases the same color code range as the pay cuts, it would look like everyone either got cut a lot or paid a lot. Instead you make it look like everyone either got negligible pay increases or HUGE pay cuts.

    I expect more from you. It’s sensationalism like this that drove me from commercial news networks.

    • Matt Stiles

      Fair point. I chose that distribution in an effort to put similar numbers of districts in each change category, not for sensationalism. I’ve updated the map with a different distribution, and I’ve set it to include all teachers, not just those with bachelor’s degrees. Let me know what you think.

      • John

        I’d say it’s also unfair to include areas that got a 0% pay increase with the pay increase areas. If you put 0% as clear it would show the majority of the state had no pay increase or decline in pay.

        But even then this would be flawed because if one area had a influx of teachers at starting salaries, it would present as the average salary going down.

    • Dirhart

      If this is “sensationalism,” you have a really quiet life.

  • serns

    Is that regular dollars or adjusted for inflation? If not adjusted, then almost everyone got a pay cut.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=652206370 Ron Culmer

    I don’t find this map helpful. Not only do I want to see pay ranges, but cost of living allowance, how these salaries stack up against administrators, starting salaries, etc. Without further information this map is misleading.

    • Anonymous

      Mr. Culmer,

      We’re gathering that info now and will write more on teacher pay later.

  • http://www.facebook.com/bryanfadams Bryan Adams

    Makes you want to encourage all your students to go into education!

  • Krueger Sharon

    Assuming this study is correct which I question since I know teachers who have not had increases in the areas noted on this report; teachers should be paid more than a non-teacher.  Teachers are responsible for our children, what more important job is there.  If you want a better America then give the children the best education possible and you will have a better America.  Education is not just about the teachers salaries too, the condition and equipment of the schools is critical.  The programs offered outside of the basic are important.  If we want to insure the growth of this country then we need to improve our educational system not take away from it. 

  • Tomelehman

    One of the critiques against the current lack of funding of teachers’ pay is currently the spending of millions on creating standardized tests. I agree with much of this critique–however; I believe this effort is worthwhile if it means that teachers are being brought into test development processes, nationwide. If we must use standardized tests, they should be assembled by people who should know what they’re doing– not politicians– or worse– secretaries of politicians, who haven’t been in a classroom for three decades or more!

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