How Teachers Are Paid: The Salary Grid

Published May 1, 2004

Although teacher pay varies by state and by school district, virtually all public schools in the U.S. employ a rigid salary grid to determine the teacher salaries paid in a specific district. This single, unified salary schedule recognizes only years of service and amount of education as inputs in determining the pay of individual teachers. It treats all degrees as equivalent, regardless of where they were earned or in what subject, and it takes no account of a teacher’s effect on student achievement or the grade level taught.

The salary schedule is simply a grid of rows and columns, with the rows down the side being increasing years of service, called “steps,” and the columns across the top being increasing education credentials–bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and doctorate, with intermediate steps to recognize the accumulation of continuing education credits from professional development.

A typical teacher salary schedule is shown in Table 1, which is the 2002-2003 schedule for a K-8 school district in suburban Cook County, Illinois. Table 2 shows all the salaries in the grid indexed to the starting salary in step 1 for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree.

A new teacher with a bachelor’s degree would start at the salary provided in step 1 under BA, or $32,722 for the nine-month school year, including a 4 percent contribution to the Teachers Retirement System. In the second year, the teacher would move into step 2 and be paid a salary of $33,357, or 1.019 times the starting salary.

As additional years of service are accumulated, the teacher moves into higher and higher steps, each of which brings an automatic annual pay increase of approximately 3 percent. However, for a teacher with just a bachelor’s degree, this particular district’s salary schedule caps teacher pay in step 12 to 1.373 times the starting salary, or $44,916 per school year.

If the teacher earns a master’s degree by the 12th year of service, that added education credential shifts the teacher to another salary step ladder with higher pay. With a master’s degree instead of a bachelor’s degree, a teacher in step 12 would be paid 1.564 times the starting salary instead of 1.373 times, or $51,192 rather than $44,916. The other benefit of having the master’s degree is that salary step increases are no longer capped in year 12, but continue to increase to $69,859 in the 25th year of service, or 2.135 times the starting salary.

If the teacher subsequently earns another 30 education credits beyond the master’s degree, this again shifts the teacher to another salary step ladder with even higher pay. The added credential boosts the teacher’s pay in step 12 to $53,238, or 1.627 times the starting salary. After 25 years of service, the teacher’s pay would increase to $79,318, or 2.424 times the starting salary.

The grid makes teacher salary administration quite simple: A teacher’s pay is not a matter of merit but simply a matter of where the teacher is in the grid. Budget projections are quite simple, too, since they involve simply adding up what the grid says the existing teaching staff will be paid in each of the next few years. It’s also simple to compute the cost of raising starting salaries, since all salaries must be raised by the same percentage as the starting salary.

However, as University of Idaho economics professor John T. Wenders points out, the use of a unified salary schedule to determine the pay of teachers–regardless of how well or what they teach–has a number of serious disincentive effects. The most important effect is on teacher quality.

“Dolts get paid the same as superior teachers, and PE teachers are paid the same as physics teachers,” says Wenders.

The result of this one-size-fits-all pay structure, he points out, is an artificial shortage of math and science teachers, whose expertise is in demand in the overall economy. It also results in a surplus of phys ed and social science teachers, who often end up teaching math and science. Not surprisingly, the performance of U.S. students in math and science is among the lowest in the world.

Research on teacher quality, notes Wenders, shows student performance is overwhelmingly a function of three factors:

  • teacher cognitive ability, or brains;
  • experience for the first few years of teaching; and,
  • at the secondary level, possession of a master’s degree in one’s teaching subject.

Rather than rewarding teacher quality, the salary grid simply rewards teacher experience and education–in effect, telling teachers not to be concerned about student performance but to acquire additional educational credits for higher pay.

“One could not consciously design a policy with worse incentives for attracting and keeping good talent and performance,” concludes Wenders.

He suggests the salary grid remains popular for three reasons:

  • For teachers, the grid provides automatic annual salary increases with no performance reviews, no salary negotiations, and no newspaper headlines reporting increased teacher pay;
  • For union leaders and school administrators, the grid is easy to administer and relieves them of the burden of justifying salary differentials based on merit and subject taught;
  • For school boards, the grid allows them to give almost all teachers automatic annual salary increases out of sight of the public and the media.

“Unlike in the marketplace,” notes Wenders, “the taxpayers who are paying the bill, and the parents whose children are being educated, are out of this loop.”


George A. Clowes is managing editor of School Reform News. His email address is [email protected].


Example of a K-8 Teacher Salary Schedule
Table 1: 2002-03 Salary Grid for a Suburban Illinois School District
Step BA BA+15 BA+30 MA MA+15 MA+30
1 32,722 33,256 34,918 37,712 39,597 41,577
2 33,357 34,072 35,617 38,655 40,389 42,409
3 34,441 34,976 36,329 39,621 41,197 43,257
4 35,561 36,375 37,237 40,612 42,021 44,122
5 37,339 37,739 38,168 41,627 43,072 45,005
6 38,739 39,155 39,965 42,668 44,148 45,983
7 40,192 40,623 41,184 43,734 45,252 47,054
8 41,297 42,146 42,728 44,828 46,383 48,231
9 42,432 43,727 44,330 46,509 47,543 49,436
10 43,599 44,929 45,993 48,020 48,732 50,672
11 44,471 46,165 47,717 49,581 50,194 51,939
12 44,916 47,434 49,268 51,192 52,076 53,238
13 44,916 48,739 50,623 52,856 54,029 54,835
14 44,916 49,713 52,015 54,574 56,055 56,891
15 44,916 50,708 53,446 56,211 58,157 59,025
16 44,916 51,323 54,915 57,757 60,338 61,238
17 44,916 51,420 56,426 59,345 62,299 63,534
18 44,916 51,420 57,554 60,977 64,012 65,599
19 44,916 51,420 58,130 62,654 65,772 67,403
20 44,916 51,420 58,711 64,377 67,581 69,257
21 44,916 51,420 58,711 66,147 69,439 71,161
22 44,916 51,420 58,711 67,470 71,349 73,118
23 44,916 51,420 58,711 68,482 73,311 75,129
24 44,916 51,420 58,711 69,167 74,777 77,195
25 44,916 51,420 58,711 69,859 76,273 79,318
Example of a K-8 Teacher Salary Schedule
Table 2: Salary Index
Step BA BA+15 BA+30 MA MA+15 MA+30
1 1.000 1.016 1.067 1.152 1.210 1.271
2 1.019 1.041 1.088 1.181 1.234 1.296
3 1.053 1.069 1.110 1.211 1.259 1.322
4 1.087 1.112 1.138 1.241 1.284 1.348
5 1.141 1.153 1.166 1.272 1.316 1.375
6 1.184 1.197 1.221 1.304 1.349 1.405
7 1.228 1.241 1.259 1.337 1.383 1.438
8 1.262 1.288 1.306 1.370 1.417 1.474
9 1.297 1.336 1.355 1.421 1.453 1.511
10 1.332 1.373 1.406 1.468 1.489 1.549
11 1.359 1.411 1.458 1.515 1.534 1.587
12 1.373 1.450 1.506 1.564 1.591 1.627
13 1.373 1.489 1.547 1.615 1.651 1.676
14 1.373 1.519 1.590 1.668 1.713 1.739
15 1.373 1.550 1.633 1.718 1.777 1.804
16 1.373 1.568 1.678 1.765 1.844 1.871
17 1.373 1.571 1.724 1.814 1.904 1.942
18 1.373 1.571 1.759 1.863 1.956 2.005
19 1.373 1.571 1.776 1.915 2.010 2.060
20 1.373 1.571 1.794 1.967 2.065 2.117
21 1.373 1.571 1.794 2.021 2.122 2.175
22 1.373 1.571 1.794 2.062 2.180 2.235
23 1.373 1.571 1.794 2.093 2.240 2.296
24 1.373 1.571 1.794 2.114 2.285 2.359
25 1.373 1.571 1.794 2.135 2.331 2.424

For more information …

Further details of the teachers’s salary grid are available from John T. Wenders’ 2002 article, “The Economic Effects of the Teachers’ Unified Salary Schedule,” in Government Union Review, Volume 20 Number 3, available online at http://www.psrf.org/gur/gur20.3wenders.jsp.