California ranked third in the nation for its average starting salary of $59,424 for teachers in 2024–25, up 1.7 percent from the year prior, according to the National Education Association’s (NEA) recent reports on educator pay in America. However, the state dropped from second in the nation in 2023–24.
Still, it was No. 1 for its average teacher salary of $103,552 in 2024–25.
NEA determined that the minimum living wage in California (income needed to provide one adult and one child with a modest but adequate standard of living in the most affordable metro area) was $73,311.
The teacher pay gap — comparing them to other college-educated professionals with similar experience — was 80 cents.
Average K-12 education support professional (ESP) earnings were $42,555 — landing at sixth best in the U.S.
Nationally, California ranked 16th in per-student spending at $20,898.
National data
The average public school teacher in the country had a salary of $74,495 in 2024–25 — up 3.5 percent year-over-year from $71,985 in 2023–24.
“Despite these gains, teacher pay has failed to keep up with inflation over the past decade,” according to NEA. “Adjusted for inflation, teachers earn about 5 percent less today than they did 10 years ago.”
While a starting teacher made an average of $48,112, up 3.4 percent from the previous year, “when adjusted for inflation, that gain falls to just 0.7 percent,” NEA explained.
Research has shown that teachers experience a pay gap of nearly 27 percent compared to other similarly educated and experienced professionals.
Other key findings from the report on teacher salary benchmarks show that:
- Thirty-five percent of school districts (representing roughly 1.5 million teachers) had an average starting salary of at least $50,000 and 15 states meet this threshold (up from 13).
- There was growth among top-end salaries as 31 percent of districts have a maximum salary of at least $96,000, although 7 percent still have a top salary below $60,000 regardless of an individual’s education level or experience.
Concerns exist around some states’ initiatives that increase minimum salary requirements for starting teachers. “Because these policies focus only on boosting new teachers’ pay, rather than increasing salaries across the full career span, starting salaries have grown faster than salaries for mid- and late-career educators,” according to NEA. “This raises concerns about the ability to not only recruit educators, but to keep them in the profession.”
Additionally, teachers in states with collective bargaining earned 24 percent more on average than their counterparts in states without it.
“If we want strong public schools, we must ensure educators are paid fairly and empowered in their work and their ability to collaborate with parents,” NEA asserts. “Competitive wages are how we ensure that talented, passionate professionals don’t have to take on second jobs or are forced out of public-school classrooms, hallways, buses, and cafeterias entirely.”
The teacher-focused report also has data broken down by region and locale type.
In the U.S., full-time ESPs earned an average of $38,494 — an increase of about $1,400 from the previous year. “But inflation has taken a toll: Real ESP pay has fallen nearly 8.9 percent over the past decade,” NEA found.
The report on ESP earnings found that “nearly 32 percent of full-time K–12 ESPs earn less than $25,000 annually,” according to NEA.
Generally, ESPs in states where they have collective bargaining rights made 13 percent more than their peers in states where that isn’t the case.
Earnings for higher education faculty were covered in an accompanying report.
