According to National Education Association numbers, Florida’s average starting teacher salary of $49,435 ranks a respectable 19th in the nation.
It’s as teaching careers progress that the picture changes. According to those same numbers, Florida’s overall average teacher salary of $56,643 ranks last among all 50 states.
It’s in that climate – and amid data such as new Department of Commerce numbers that show the Miami area surpassing New York and Los Angeles to rank behind only San Francisco as the U.S.’s most expensive metro – that Miami-Dade Public Schools are asking voters to continue supplementing teacher pay for another four years.
The supplement, which voters have approved twice in previous years, would keep in place a property tax amounting to $1 for every $1,000 of a property’s taxable value. The money must go to pay for teachers and school safety staff. The “Secure our Future” referendum would provide teachers with an estimated average salary supplement of $10,000 to $12,000 a year.
“Those dollars go directly to teacher pay and for our (school) police officers as well,” school board member Roberto J. Alonso said. “It allows us to be able to put those dollars into our teachers’ paychecks.”
Alonso knows about the cost-of-living issues teachers face – both of his sisters are Miami Lakes-area public school teachers.
“It gets harder and harder for our teachers to be able to live here,” he said.
He’s also a proponent of making cuts at the school district’s central office and finding ways to be efficient elsewhere. The goal, he says, is to channel as much money into classrooms and teacher paychecks as possible.