According to the Educational Research Service (ERS), school districts in the United States spent 61.4 percent of their budgets on staff salaries in 2006–07. Texas is no different on this measure. During the same year, payroll accounted for 61.3 percent of district expenditures in Texas. The picture changes, however, when per-pupil spending and the salary and wage levels are examined more closely.
ERS’s annual National Survey of Salaries and Wages in Public Schools for 2008–09 reports average salaries paid to educators and school support personnel in districts across the country. The survey found that U.S. school districts paid their teachers an average salary of $52,900 for 2008–09. Compare that to Texas districts which paid teachers an average of $43,451—82 percent of the national average.
Texas principals also earn less than their counterparts across the country. High school principals in the U.S. earn an average of $99,365 but only $81,590 in Texas, also 82 percent of the national average. The ERS survey reports that middle school and elementary school principals earn $93,478 and $88,062 nationally. In Texas, middle school and elementary campus principals earn 79 percent of the national average at $73,840 and $69,475.
The picture for support staff such as bus drivers and food service workers is no different. Texas bus drivers earn an average of $13.88 per hour compared to the national average of $16.44 per hour. Food service workers in Texas earn $9.51 per hour compared to a national average of $11.94.
If Texas’ percent of payroll expenditures are on par with national figures, why are salaries so much lower? The discrepancy is explained by comparing how much Texas spends per student. According to a National Education Association report, Rankings of the States 2008 and Estimates of School Statistics 2009, school districts in the U.S. spent an average of $9,963 per student in current expenditures in 2007–08. In the same year, Texas spent just $7,978 according to the same report. The bottom line is Texas spends 80 percent of the national average per student, about the same as the difference in average pay levels for educators.
(Editor’s note: The ERS National Survey of Salaries and Wages in Public Schools is conducted annually. The 2008-09 report includes a sample of 862 public school systems with enrollments of more than 300 students in the United States. The Texas salary figures are taken from the 2008–09 TASB/TASA Salaries and Wages in Texas Public Schools survey. Texas school districts with fewer than 300 students were removed from the average salaries reported.)
—“Salaries and wages paid professional and support personnel in public schools 2008–2009,” National Survey of Salaries and Wages in Public Schools, 36th Ed., Educational Research Service.
—Salaries and Wages in Texas Public Schools 2008–09, TASA/TASB.
—2007–08 State Profile Report, Academic Excellence Indicator System, Texas Education Agency.
—Rankings of the States 2008 and Estimates of School Statistics 2009, National Education Association, December 2008.
