2010-11 average teacher pay increase the smallest in a decade

Texas teachers received some of the smallest pay raises in years for 2010-11. Districts provided their teachers with an average pay increase of 2.2 percent, the smallest average teacher pay increase in more than ten years.

For 2010-11, districts were required to pay teachers at least a salary equivalent to district’s 2008-09 salary schedule for their years of experience plus the pay raise required by HB 3646 the year before. This translated into a “step” increase on the local 2008-09 salary schedule for most districts. The mandated “step” increase coupled with strained district budgets resulted in anemic pay raise budgets.

Small pay raise budgets also led to little growth in the average teacher salary. For 2010-11, Texas teachers earn $48,950 on average. That’s up just 1.4 percent from the previous year.

In the largest districts in the state—those with more than 50,000 students—the average teacher salary remained flat, increasing by less than one-half of a percent from $51,134 to $51,224. Nearly one-third of the teachers represented in the survey work in these districts.

Teacher hiring schedules remained very close to 2009-10 levels as well. This year, the average starting salary for new teachers was $36,009, notching a barely noticeable increase of just 0.6 percent over last year’s average of $35,793.

Continued investment in critical shortage areas

While districts clearly tried to curb spending on salaries, they continue to increase stipends and incentives to attract teachers of critical shortage area subjects. Three quarters of Texas districts pay more to those certified and teaching in critical shortage areas such as math, science, bilingual education, and others. That practice has grown over the past decade but leveled out in the past three or four years. However, the size of the stipends paid to critical shortage teachers continues to grow.

For example, secondary math stipends increased by 4 percent to $2,419 for this year, after increasing 7 percent between 2008-09 and 2009-10. This indicates that districts are investing salary dollars in hard-to-fill positions at a much faster rate than they are increasing base pay, close to three times the rate in areas like math and science.

Targeted pay practices

District budgets are tighter than ever and there may be no relief in the next several years. Districts continue to focus teacher pay efforts on their greatest needs. Here are some of the stipends and incentives paid to Texas teachers for 2010-11:

The data used in this story was taken from the 2010-11 Teacher Report , the second report in the annual TASB/TASA Salaries and Wages in Texas Public Schools salary survey. Sixty-two percent of Texas districts representing 90 percent of public school teachers in the state submitted data to HR Services in the Fall of 2010. Full highlights  are available on the TASB website. HR Services member districts can access the full report  in myTASB.