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South Dakota Average Teacher Pay Last Year up 2.14% to $40,880

As we head toward a second day of possibly enlightening but likely truncated floor debate on House Bill 1182, Governor Dennis Daugaard’s sales tax hike to fund teacher pay raises, I submit an extension of my fiscal analysis of the Blue Ribbon teacher pay proposal.

On the recommendation of commenters, I reviewed the Department of Education’s district profiles for academic year 2014–2015 and added districts’ average teacher salaries to my big Blue Ribbon teacher pay spreadsheet. I multiplied each local average by the number of teachers, summed, then divided the total by the statewide instructional FTEs.

The result: last year, average teacher pay in South Dakota was $40,880. That’s a 2.14% increase over the widely reported NEA figure for AY 2013–2014 of $40,023 that has informed this year’s debate on South Dakota’s rock-bottom teacher pay.

Between those two school years, the per-student allocation for K-12 funding increased 3.36%. I’d want to see trends from previous years to identify a trend before hollering. I’d also caution that lots of factors beyond the state’s magic number can impact average teacher pay—for example, if a lot of older teachers retired and were replaced by first-timers starting at the bottom of the salary schedule, average teacher pay would not have climbed as fast as the funding increase even if schools applied that 3.36% boost to every step of the salary schedule.

But the straight numerical fact is this: last year, a 3.36% increase in per-student allocation resulted in a 2.14% increase in teacher pay.

Stay tuned: I have a more detailed district-by-district comparison of last year’s salaries to the Governor’s Blue Ribbon promises coming up.

 

 

5 Comments

  1. LedZ 2016-02-16 10:53

    Have you posted anything prior regarding our neighboring states using student-teacher ratios to ‘equalize’ state aid?

  2. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-02-16 12:16

    No, I haven’t, LedZ. Is there precedent for basing K-12 funding formulas on target student-teacher ratios?

  3. Madman 2016-02-16 12:28

    An interesting read for those following the education debate. Pay attention to the class size reduction section and improving teacher quality section. A few things that discuss ratios and what three states have done to improve ratios although not directly linked to funding like this bill.

    http://www.cbpp.org/archives/11-7-02sfp3.htm

    It’s an older piece of information but one I feel is as relevant today as when I first read it in my first year of teaching.

  4. Madman 2016-02-16 12:40

    Also North Carolina has used the student-teacher ratio to determine funding but its an even more confusing process then the South Dakota formula.

  5. leslie 2016-02-16 15:31

    Lotta confusion seemingly in this issue, medicaid expansion/Indian Health Service failure, EB5/MCEC fraud and perhaps other issues state administered that are failures that daugaard’s GOP is evading accountibility for….

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