Teacher’s Annual Salary by State
There are many differentiated reasons as to why teachers leave the profession within the first five years. However, there were a couple common factors but the most popular among the teachers reasoning for leaving the teaching field was their annual salary. This is why I decided to investigate what the annual teacher salaries across the United States. This topic is also of interest to me because of my career choice.
I found two resources with similar data sets, both sets of data were gathered within the year 2018. The first set of data was found in June of 2018 and focused on the ten lowest and the ten highest average teacher salaries state in the United States. Whereas the last graph contained a data set for all fifty states’ teacher salaries, this data was recorded in November of 2018. I chose bar graphs to represent both data sets because the purpose of each data set is comparative. Bar graphs are commonly used as visuals to compare data among categories, such as when I am comparing state to state salaries.
The bar graphs dating back to June both show an overall steady slope. For the top ten salary bar graph, there is commonly in between each state, as it increases, you can notice an average of a 5,000 dollar gap. Whereas with the top ten lowest salary states, you will see a common trait of each state staying within the forty thousand range for an annual salary. There are more various gaps in each state’s value but the average difference between each state is one thousand dollars.
The next bar graph for November shows a steady decrease in a difference in state salary value from Wyoming and onward. However, before Wyoming, there is less of a steady slope. From New York to Connecticut there is a steep slope and then the next three states (Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Rhode Island) have little difference. Then another stead decrease begins with Michigan until it reaches Wyoming.
The important thing to know when reading these bar graphs is to remember that the longer the bar, the greater its value. When reading both sets of data you are able to see that Northern states tend to have higher salaries than more Southern states. However, there are states such as West Virginia that are considered to be more northern than other states In both sets of data between June and November West Virginia has stayed in the lower percentile based on the visuals provided.
Resources:
https://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/states-highest-lowest-teacher-salaries.html/
https://patch.com/us/across-america/teacher-pay-how-each-state-ranks
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