Teachers should make at least $60K annually, education official tells Pa. Senate committee

Faced with a nationwide educator shortage, Pennsylvania ought to up its minimum starting salary for teachers to $60,000, the president of a commonwealth teachers’ union told a Harrisburg panel Tuesday.

The current statutory minimum for Pennsylvania teachers is $18,500.

“Educator and support staff contract negotiations cannot be approached as an opportunity to pinch pennies, but instead must be a means of establishing appropriate levels of salary and benefits that will keep educators in the classroom,” Pennsylvania Education Association president Rich Askey said at a state Senate Education Committee hearing on the teacher shortage. “That shift in approach should begin at the top — through legislative efforts to increase funding for schools, thereby negating tax impact on district taxpayers, and raising the minimum educator salary, which has remained unchanged since 1989.”

» READ MORE: The declining pipeline of educators-to-be has experts worried the teacher shortage will only get worse.

In Philadelphia, brand-new teachers make $50,066 annually; the most seasoned teachers, who achieve “senior career teacher” status, are paid $99,394 per year.

In suburban Radnor Township, new teachers are paid $52,450 annually and the highest-paid teachers make $114,225 annually; Pennsbury pays its teachers between $51,428 and $106,004. The West Chester Area School District pays between $51,560 and $105,824.

In addition to guaranteeing at least $60,000 annually for teachers, school counselors, and nurses, Askey also suggested Pennsylvania set a floor for compensation of support staff like paraprofessionals, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and custodians of $20 an hour. Some currently make far less.

A number of states, including Illinois, Maryland, and Mississippi, have passed laws boosting teacher salaries; other states are weighing similar measures. Other states, including Arizona, Idaho, and Maine, want to raise minimum wages for school support workers; Delaware just enacted a $21-per-hour minimum wage for its school bus drivers.

The ask was set against what experts say is a school staffing crisis that started with a steep drop in college graduates choosing to enter the teaching profession. According to Pennsylvania Education Department data, the number of teaching certificates issued to in-state graduates declined by 64% in the last decade, and the number of emergency certifications rose by more than 200%.

Askey said the current situation is “not sustainable,” and offered several solutions, including a model that pays student teachers. He also suggested Pennsylvania invest in “grow your own” programs to strengthen teacher pipelines with educators from the communities they will serve.

» READ MORE: New report offers extensive remedies for Pennsylvania’s teacher shortage

He also underscored the importance of recruiting Black teachers and other teachers of color.

Askey’s proposals echo some of those made by the American Federation of Teachers in a 2022 report on teacher staffing and retention. Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president Jerry Jordan was part of the task force that produced that report.

In addition to calling for higher teacher salaries, the AFT also suggested better working and learning conditions, including reduced class sizes, emphasizing community schools that surround students with resources that support learning, and reducing the amount of paperwork teachers must complete.

The task force said authorities must work to address a 20% pay gap between teachers and their college-educated non-teaching peers.

Jordan said changes need to come swiftly to address the educator shortage.

“We are dealing with the impact of this crisis daily in Philadelphia,” Jordan said in a statement. “Every staff member in every school provides essential resources for our young people — and without adequate staff, our school communities suffer.”