Arizona ranks 46th in the country for teacher salaries

The upcoming State Legislative Session will no doubt include a familiar battle over education resources. Producer Grace Provenzano and Videographer Rudy Romo look at some recent numbers in the fight for more education funding and what ASU’S College of Education is doing to attract more teachers to the classroom.

Adriana Zindars is teaching her 3rd grade students at Stevenson Elementary in Mesa how to think about solving every day problems but not so easy to solve are the issues facing Zindars teaching profession.

Several states across the country are experiencing teacher shortages and Arizona is not any different.

The state is also always at the bottom of the list for teacher salaries and working conditions.

The average teacher salary as of 2019-2020 in Arizona is $50, 782 which makes it number 46 out of 50 states.

In a broader scope, the national average for teacher salaries is $64, 133.

The Arizona Education Association is working diligently on this issue but that’s not the only issues pushing teachers away from this profession.

According to Joe Thomas of the Arizona Education Association, “before we were in a pandemic, Arizona had three decades of significant tax cuts that have underfunded our schools, have overcrowded our classrooms, have pushed teachers to other states where they can get better working conditions and they can get respectful salaries.”