NPR on Kentucky’s relative teacher salary ranking

Surprise

NPR published an interesting ranking of the average teacher salaries across the 50 states a few days ago. I think the findings will surprise many in Kentucky.

Below is an extract from a graphic in the NPR article that shows the top-ranked states for teacher salaries as of 2016. Surprise! After adjusting for the relative cost of living in each state (results shown by the blue bars), Kentucky ranks very high – in seventh place.

NPR Teacher Salary Comparison Extract

When you look at this, it turns out that only one of Kentucky’s neighboring states, Ohio, pays teachers more after cost of living is considered.

So, this new NPR study backs up recent comments Governor Bevin made as recently captured by WHAS11.com. WHAS11 quotes the governor saying:

“The average teacher in Kentucky makes more money than the average teacher in Tennessee, makes more money than the average teacher in Virginia, makes more money than the average teacher in West Virginia, makes more money than the average teacher in Missouri, makes more money than the average teacher in Indiana, and in other states that border us.”

The WHAS article is particularly interesting because it seems the station initially didn’t believe the governor and decided to “Verify Test” him. Surprise again.

After looking at the data, WHAS11 concluded that “Based on all of this information, we can verify the governor's statement's (sic) on Kentucky teacher pay is accurate.”

As I said, “Surprise.”