Six Figures

The OSPI website is a fun place, depending on what kind of fun you’re looking for. It’s not Spitzerish fun; it’s not even Disneyland fun. It’s more like that sense of fun you feel when you open the dishwasher and see that it’s already been run so the dishes are clean and you can use those dishes for a few days and then worry about loading it again at some point in the future, and if you get lucky your wife or mother-in-law might do it!

Anyhow, poking around the site a few weeks back I came across this spreadsheet (Historical Comparison of Statewide School District Personnel Annualized Average Base Salaries) looking at trends in teacher pay in Washington State. It’s complete for teachers, administrators, and classified staff back to 1973-1974, and the patterns are pretty interesting.

• In the 1973-1974 school year there were about 32,700 teachers who made an average salary of $11,295. In 2007-2008 there are 54,000 teachers making an average of almost $50k a year.
  
  
• In 1973 there were 1,200 “central administrators” (I’m assuming that means superintendents; the page I have doesn’t define) making $19,540 a year. In 2007 there were 1,174 administrators making an average of $101,475.
  
  
• “Wait a minute,” I can hear you thinking, “there are less central administrators now than there were 35 years ago? That can’t be right!” I agree, given the rise of special ed directors, assistant superintendents, and the like, though I’d posit that the fact that there’s less school districts now than there were then could be an influence.
  
  
• Unit administrators (the principals) make an average of $92,103 a year, up from $17,368 in 1973.

Hooray for numbers!