For all the discussion of New Jersey’s pension system woes as Election 2017 gets underway, Save Jerseyans, and shrill warnings from the New Jersey (Mis)Education Association (NJEA) about how Trenton treats public school teachers, the truth of that matter is that the Garden State’s educators still have it pretty damn good…
…at least relative to their colleagues in the other 49 states.
That’s the conclusion of a recently conducted 2016 survey by Zippia, a leading occupation information aggregation website, which took a close look at how teachers are compensated throughout the United States.
Here’s the top 10 list:
You can click here to check out the full story.
The results were obtained by evaluating variables including teacher salary ($96,290 is the average in N.J. for “experienced” teachers) and availability of job opportunities. Don’t flip out over the raw numbers: Zippia did take account of cost of living variations, too, utilizing MIT’s living wage index, and New Jersey is still the overall best place to seek a career in public education.
Have our politicians been good stewards of the pension system? No.
Do most teachers earn every dime of their salary? You bet!
Are New Jersey’s educators mistreated relative to other educators around the country?
No. It’s a black-and-white numbers thing.
If the NJEA wasn’t self-interested, and really cared about something (or someone) other than power, then it’d accept these numbers, quit acting like the sky is falling, and enter into honest good faith negotiations with Trenton over additional pension and benefits reforms.
After all – wouldn’t it be nice to preserve the opportunities enjoyed by present day N.J. teachers for the next generation?
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