Teacher Pay Scale

North Carolina has released a new teacher pay scale. This scale raised the pay of beginning teachers and increases the overall average pay of teachers.

I was crawling around in an abandoned, spider-web filled furniture warehouse looking for a usable table for a Kindergarten classroom when I came across North Carolina's Teacher Salary Schedule from 2006-2007.

It made me wonder, what would the salary schedule look like today if it was only adjusted for inflation?

Teacher Salary Schedule increases are pitched as pay increases but they don't even keep pace with inflation. A teacher starting today stands to make nearly $420,000 less over the course of their career than a teacher who started in 2006. Do you have a Master's Degree and your National Board certification? You stand to make almost $530,000 less over the course of your career.

If I were to build this out, I would summarize career losses like how I presented the data in The Takeaway section.

This doesn't show the entire picture, of course. There are so many factors that go along with teacher pay beyond mere inflation. I would want a more nuanced look in a visualization. You may not realize but teacher salary schedule increases have often coincided with a decrease in benefit coverage/increase in benefit costs. Teachers are losing this budget battle across many fronts. A more comprehensive look at this data would include health insurance costs, local salary supplements, and the summary salary information.