Public school teachers in Virginia are getting a 3.5% raise this year. But, they're still struggling to catch up to the national average.
Virginia is falling behind the national average for teacher salaries. That's according to numbers from the National Education Association posted to the Virginia Public Access Project.
Levi Goren at the Commonwealth Institute says the latest budget includes raises for teachers, but that's not enough to catch up to the national average.
"Even those 4% a year increases would not be enough to get us to the average teacher pay in this country as a whole," Goren says. "And that's even worse when you compare it to the fact that Virginia is generally a relatively high cost of living, high salary state."
Teacher salaries peaked during the pandemic, and they have yet to return to what they were during the 2020-2021 school year.
"We know that in those years after the pandemic, there was a large increase in the number of teachers who left teaching in Virginia. And they were most likely replaced by younger, newer teachers," says Luke Miller at the University of Virginia. "By the salary schedule, you pay that new teacher less."
Teachers are slated to get another 3.5% raise next year, although that will not be enough for Virginia to be at the national average anytime soon.
