As the new school year begins, the National Education Association (NEA) is out with its yearly Rankings and Estimates Report for 2018, and, unfortunately, South Dakota has dropped back to being last in the country in teacher pay.

Statistics from the NEA show the average classroom teacher in America earning $58,353 a year. The nation's highest-paid teachers are in New York State making $79,000 a year; South Dakota is at the bottom at just over $42,000 a year.

To go along with that, a separate study done by the Learning Policy Institute shows teachers in more than two dozen states still qualify for food stamps. Think about that -they don't make enough to get above the poverty line for their state.

How the 2018-19 academic school year will play out has yet to be determined, but you may remember last year teachers in Oklahoma, West Virginia and Arizona walked off the job to protest low pay. Hopefully, it never reaches that point here in South Dakota.

Source: Cheat Sheet


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