McCaleb Wise

713 W 4th Street

Stillwater, OK 74074

26th September 2023

Mike Morath
Texas Education Agency
1701 N. Congress Avenue
Austin, Texas 78701

Dear Commissioner Mike Morath,

I hope this letter finds you well and in good spirits. I am writing to you today in regards to
teacher pay in Texas. Specifically to talk about why it is so low compared to the national average
and to see what your plans are to fix this? I am highly concerned with the lack of teachers our
great state has and even more concerned with how we expect to keep the few teachers we have
when we under pay them by so much.
Teacher pay is something that many people know is not high enough in our state. I can remember
being in high school and us as students knew our teachers were not being paid nearly enough and
that was three years ago. In an article written by Madeline Will she says “the national average
teacher salary for the 2022-23 school year is $68,469” and if “adjusted for inflation, teachers are,
on average, making $3,644 less than they did 10 years ago” (Will). This means that the Texas
average teacher income of $58,887 for returning teachers is almost $10,000 less than the average
teacher was making in the rest of the nation 10 years ago (National Education Association).
Besides that does not include our starting teachers' pay of $45,493 (National Education
Association). Now I know no one gets into teaching to become rich by any means but teachers
should be able to live comfortably and be paid what they deserve for educating our generations
of tomorrow.
Teacher pay has been something that has been widely discussed across the state and country but
yet nothing has really been done about it. According to an article written by Joseph Leahy in
2022 Texas was ranked 26th in the nation for average teacher salary but we rank 43rd in the
nation for average veteran teacher salary (Leahy et al.). This is something that is very concerning
to me considering in both stats we are under the top 50 percent in the country and we are not
even in the top 75 percent in the country for our average veteran teacher pay. We live in a very
large state and I know it is hard to get an average for either category that is better because of all
the different sizes of schools and districts across the state, but just because it is hard does not
mean it is not needed. Teachers across the state are highly underpaid and it is not just a certain
area of the state bringing down either average.
My biggest concern I think with the average teacher pay is the fact that it barely exceeds the
average cost of living in our great state of Texas, especially the average start out salary across the
state. According to an article written by Kia Jackson the average cost of living in the state of
Texas is $45,114 with the exception of “most major towns in Texas fall below the national
average cost of living of $47,915” (Jackson). This means a brand new teacher has to use all but a
few hundred dollars that they earn in their first year just to live in the state they are teaching in.
As well as if they choose to live in a major city in the state and teach either in the city or around
the city they wont even make enough in a year to pay for their cost of living unless they choose
to make major financial cuts and most like live uncomfortably for a few years just to start seeing
a positive income in their lives. This is also something that makes it very hard for new teachers
fresh out of college to pay off their college debt. It is no secret that many people graduate with
thousands of dollars of debt every year and we as a state are expecting these teachers fresh out of
college to be able to live comfortably and pay off college debt all off an average starting salary
that is not even enough to live in a major city off of.
I know we have a teacher shortage in our country but especially we have one in Texas. As
someone that has always wanted to teach and coach when they graduate from college I am
starting to understand why we have a shortage. I believe that pay is the biggest reason we have
the shortage we have. I know personally I am going to have debt when I graduate college like
most people do and as I go further and further in school teaching does not sound like a career I
can choose until maybe after I work somewhere else for a while to pay off my debt and can live
comfortably. While I don’t think this is most people's mindset I do think most people are just
genuinely changing their degrees and there are less and less people that want to teach due to the
pay teachers get. Teachers are such an undervalued position in our community and I feel like
with the low pay it shows teachers that not even our officials think they are an important position
in our community.
These teachers are teaching not only our future generations but also our future leaders, doctors,
and future world changers. I feel as if we need to start to pay them like it. Teachers are one of
our most undervalued people in our communities and in our society and it needs to change. Us as
a state need to spark the change that is needed in not only our state but also in our country. We
need to start paying teachers what they deserve not only to show our appreciation and how
valued they are in our society, but also to help fix our teacher shortage by allowing people to feel
comfortable enough financially to teach and provide a stable household for themselves and their
families. I believe we need to up the start out pay our average veteran pay of $58,887 and we
need to up our average veteran teacher pay to at least $70,000 in our state. The way to do this is
by setting a minimum for both that is only a few thousand dollars less than what we want the
average to be. This will force school districts to start paying their teachers better and closer to
what they deserve. Another thing we could do is set a lower start out pay minimum but have a
required overtime pay. This would be something I believe many teachers like because they
already work so much more than the standard seven or eight hour school day that they teach
everyday.
Thank you for listening to what I have to say on the topic of teacher pay and my ideas on how I
think we can start to make a difference in our great state. I hope some of this was new
information to you and was an eye opener on how underpaid our teachers are. I appreciate you
taking time out of your day to read about my concerns. I would love to hear about how you see
things if you would like to reach out, my cell phone number is (817)692-7172 and my email is
wisemccaleb.21@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you and I hope you have a blessed
day.
Sincerely,
McCaleb Wise

Works Cited
Jackson, Kia. “Cost of Living in Texas 2023.” OneMain Financial,

22 August 2023,

https://www.onemainfinancial.com/resources/everyday-living/cos

t-of-living-in-texas. Accessed 28 September 2023.

Leahy, Joseph, et al. “Texas teacher salaries largely lag behind

the national average – Houston Public Media.” Houston Public

Media, 28 April 2022,

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/education-

news/2022/04/28/424241/texas-teacher-salaries-largely-lag-

behind-the-national-average/. Accessed 28 September 2023.

National Education Association. “Educator Pay Data | NEA.”

National Education Association, 24 April 2023,

https://www.nea.org/resource-library/educator-pay-and-student-

spending-how-does-your-state-rank. Accessed 28 September

2023.

Will, Madeline. “How Much Do Teachers Get Paid? See New

State-by-State Data.” Education Week, 24 April 2023,

https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/how-much-do-

teachers-get-paid-see-new-state-by-state-data/2023/04.

Accessed 28 September 2023.

Annotated Bibliography
In the article “Cost of Living in Texas” the author goes over and breaks
down the cost of living in Texas. She explains why Texas is so
affordable to live in compared to other states. She also explains the
average cost of living in the state and explains how much people spend
on average in a month. In the article Kia Jackson also goes in and
breaks down the average cost of utilities per month. She makes it easy
for people to look and be able to get a real insight into how much it
costs for people to live in Texas.

In the “Educator Pay in America” article it doesn’t really give you much
of a story, it is more of an informational website. It breaks down the
national teacher average for start out pay and veteran teacher pay in
the country. It also has a graph to show how teachers make less money
now in the country than they did 10 years ago. My favorite thing about
the website though is there is a map that shows the states with
hyperlinks on each state. When you press on the state it shows things
like average start out pay, veteran teacher pay, teacher pay gap, and
much more.

The article “How Much Do Teachers Get Paid?” is just a short read that
opens your eyes into what the national average is for teacher pay.
There is not much information in this article but it does talk about how
inflation is causing teachers to be paid over $3,000 less a year than
they used to be even though salaries across the nation are up.

While my last article is not very long either, it is very informative. It

discusses how Texas overall as a state underpays their teachers by a lot
on average. This article discusses and gives the numbers that show in
some areas Texas is behind by more than $13,000 when it comes to
teacher salary. The article also says how lawmakers are in the position
to change the teacher salary and adjust it to the national average but
they just have not yet.