In Montana, the average teacher salary is $48,440 per year. The highest paid teachers make an average of $99,730 per year, while the lowest paid make an average of $42,030 per year.
Average Teacher Salary
What grade are you teaching? What school are you working in? These are the biggest initial factors in determining the average salary of a teacher will look like.
When the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) updates its occupational employment statistics, it breaks up schoolteachers into categories. The three broadest categories they use are elementary school teachers, middle school teachers and secondary school teachers, which we more colloquially refer to as high school teachers. It can’t provide hourly wages, as the role of a teacher isn’t technically a year-round position, but annual wages are reported.
Average Elementary School Teacher Salary
Per the BLS, in May of 2018 elementary school teachers, a wide umbrella for those who teach elementary level education to kids (excluding special education, a separate occupation with its own set of skills), had a median annual income of $58,230.
This number would be above the average salary in the U.S., but it’s the median of an awfully wide range of salaries. Elementary school teachers in the bottom 10% of income only made around $37,780, while those in the highest 10% could make as much as $95,270.
The overwhelming majority of the 1.41 million elementary school teachers used to find these figures worked in elementary or K-12 schools. The second-highest concentration (a very distant second) of them were employed in religious organizations – 2,510 teachers as compared to the 1.4 million in elementary/secondary schools. The mean annual wage for elementary school teachers at these religious organizations was $53,230.
Kindergarten is seen as a separate teaching role by the BLS as well. The median annual salary for kindergarten teachers was $55,470.
Average Middle School Teacher Salary
Middle school teachers aren’t as plentiful as elementary school teachers in the U.S. – the BLS counted 609,970 of them – but they make, on average, a slightly higher salary than elementary school teachers. The median salary of these middle school teachers (again excluding special education teachers, as well as career/technical education) in May of 2018 was $58,600.
The salary range of middle school teachers is fairly similar to that of elementary school ones. The floor is slightly higher, as the bottom 10% make around $39,090. Interestingly, however, the ceiling isn’t quite as high as that of elementary school; the highest 10% of middle school teachers made $93,180.
Unsurprisingly, the states with the largest amount of middle school teachers employed tend to be among the more heavily populated ones. Texas is first by a wide margin with 66,470, followed by California with 46,500. New York comes in at a fairly distant third with 39,950 middle school teachers.
Average High School Teacher Salary
With approximately 1.05 million of them in the U.S., there are considerably more high school teachers than middle school teachers, and they continue the incremental progress of slightly higher salaries the higher the grades you teach. The median annual wages for high school teachers (special and technical education excluded) was $60,320 in May of 2018.
The bottom and top 10% of high school teachers each make more than their elementary and middle school counterparts; the 10th percentile of high school teachers make $39,740 while the 90th percentile (the highest 10%) makes $97,500.
Thousands of secondary school teachers do their job for local and state governments, and it appears to be one of the more lucrative industries for teachers. The 1,490 high school teachers in the local government have a mean annual wage of $56,490, while the 1,460 in state government had a mean annual wage of $72,340.
Teacher Salary Comparison Based On Years Of Experience
The level of experience is the most important factor in determining the salary. Naturally the more years of experience the higher your wage.
A Teacher with less than two years of experience makes approximately 43,200 USD per year. While someone with an experience level between two and five years is expected to earn 55,600 USD per year, which is 29% more than someone with less than two years’ experience.
More so, an experience level between five and ten years earns a salary of 76,700 USD per year, which is 38% more than someone with two to five years of experience.
Additionally, Teacher(s) whose expertise spans anywhere between ten and fifteen years get a salary equivalent of 95,000 USD per year.
If the experience level is between fifteen and twenty years, then the expected wage is 102,000 USD per year, 7% more than someone with ten to fifteen years of experience.
Finally, a teacher with more than twenty years of professional experience gets a salary of 109,000 USD per year, 7% more than people with fifteen to twenty years of experience.
Teachers average salary in based of level of experience in summary
- 0 – 2 Years – 43,200 USD
- 2 – 5 Years +29% – 55,600 USD
- 5 – 10 Years +38% – 76,700 USD
- 10 – 15 Years +24% – 95,000 USD
- 15 – 20 Years +7% – 102,000 USD
- 20+ Years +7% – 109,000 USD
Teacher Salary Comparison by Education
There is a common saying that, “in order to earn more you have to learn more”. We all know that higher education equals a bigger salary
When the education level is Bachelor’s Degree, the average salary of a Teacher is 54,000 USD per year while a Master’s Degree holder gets a salary of 86,700 USD per year.
Many people pursue higher education as a tactic to switch into a higher paying job. The numbers seem to support the theory.
Teacher Salary Comparison by Gender
While Male teachers earn 76,200 USD, Females earn about 72,400 USD
Teacher’s Average Annual Salary Increment
Teachers in the United States observe a salary increase of approximately 11% every 17 months.
Salary increments vary from individual to another depending on the above mentioned factors, but your performance and contribution to the success of the organization remain the most important factors in determining how much and how often you will be given a salary increase.
