Are these the best and worst states for teachers?

[QED]

The top 5:

1 Wyoming
2 Pennsylvania
3 Minnesota
4 Massachusetts
5 Virginia

The bottom 5:

46 Arizona
47 Hawaii
48 South Dakota
49 West Virginia
50 Mississippi 47
51 North Carolina

Are these the best and worst states for teachers?

The WalletHub Web site looked at data to determine the states that they call the “teacher friendliest states in the country.”

The data used to come up with the rankings include (see entire methodology below) average starting salaries, median annual salaries, number of teacher per capita, unemployment rates and much more. It also included data from other WalletHub rankings, including one purportedly ranking the “best and worst school systems” based in part on standardized test scores (which really tell us far less than commonly believed) and other data points that are open to interpretation, such as instances of bullying (which are handled differently in different schools).

In the new “teacher friendly” rankings, here’s what’s not included: information on whether states have preserved job protections for teachers, or whether teachers are fairly evaluated, or whether under-prepared Teach For America corps members are replacing veteran teachers, or the overall impact of corporate-based school reform on the teaching profession.

So are these rankings really showing the “teacher-friendliest” states? Not so much.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/29/are-these-the-best-and-worst-states-for-teachers/

[femmocrat]

1. Pennsylvania:

PA might have been more teacher-friendly before Corebutt, but since he cut $1 billion from education, there have been something like 75,000 teachers who lost their jobs. Although I do remember a former superintendent railing against Ridge about 20 years ago! LOL

He also instituted value-added evaluations from hell. Plus Common Core and more standardized testing are mandated.

And it seems like we are fighting against his pet cause, vouchers, just about every year (except this one, since it is an election year).

***

Virginia teachers are very low-paid and receive raises when the legislature decides to give them a measly 1% every few years. It has not yet improved under McAuliffe.... that I know of anyhow. I have a family member teaching in VA. They don't seem to have value-added evaluations yet though. Not sure.