Gap between the highest- and lowest-paying districts narrows but does not close when local wages and teacher experience are considered 

By Namira Haris
NewsWorks Lab data journalist

Pennsylvania’s highest-paying school district pays its teachers a median salary of $131,683 – or more than three times as much as the lowest-paying district at $41,750, a NewsWorks Lab analysis of 2025-26 state Education Department records shows. 

After adjusting for the fact that wages are higher in some parts of the state than others, the highest-paying district still pays 2.6 times the lowest.  A separate comparison of teachers with similar experience and a master’s degree or higher also found a gap of more than two to one between districts. 

The median full-time classroom teacher in the New Hope-Solebury district in Bucks County, near Philadelphia, earns $131,683. In Harmony Area, in Clearfield County, the median is $41,750. The median is the middle salary in a district: Half its teachers earn more, half earn less. 

The divide cuts through western Pennsylvania too, sometimes within a single county. A median teacher in Peters Township, Washington County, earns $115,029; a median teacher in Bentworth, in the same county, earns $55,100. 

“Does it hurt kids? Absolutely,” Bentworth Superintendent Scott Martin told NewsWorks Lab. “I mean, small and rural schools have a very difficult time doing the same things that we’re required to do with a quarter of the staff.”   

How much a teacher earns in Pennsylvania is largely up to each community, with each district setting its own pay scale based on local budgets and negotiations over local union contracts. That model allows individual communities to set a pay scale based on what local taxpayers can afford, but other states such as North Carolina and Texas have set statewide standardized minimum pay scales.  

Pennsylvania’s legal minimum teacher salary is $18,500, a number written into state law in 1988 and never raised. For comparison, a full-time worker paid the state’s $7.25 minimum wage earns $15,080 a year.  

The state’s largest teachers’ union, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, wants lawmakers to set a minimum of $60,000 for teachers, but no bill was introduced during this legislative session. 

“Young college-educated professionals can earn more money with similar education levels by working in other fields,” said Chris Lilienthal, the PSEA’s communications manager. “This is why PA and the nation are experiencing crisis-level teacher shortages.” 

Rachel Langan, a policy analyst at the Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg free-market think tank that opposes a statewide minimum, told NewsWorks Lab that a statewide minimum could harm some places that cannot afford it. 

“It would make a salary outside the bounds of what would be acceptable for that community, and maybe not be in the best interest of the community as a whole,” she said. 

Western Pennsylvania 

Across western Pennsylvania, median teacher pay ranges from $41,750 in Clearfield County’s Harmony Area – the lowest in the state – to $121,572 in Allegheny County’s Fox Chapel Area, state records show.  

Pittsburgh Public Schools has a median of $106,185, while 45% of teachers in Somerset County earn less than $60,000.  

A new teacher with a bachelor’s degree starts at $38,000 in Somerset’s Salisbury-Elk Lick, while the median is $50,300. 

“We occasionally lose teachers to neighboring districts, but our district is one that people tend to like working in, so that helps,” Superintendent Jason Collier said. “Openings are hard to fill everywhere, and we are no different.” 

The PSEA keeps a database of starting salaries drawn from local contracts, defined as pay for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree at the first step of the scale. Of the 590 school districts, career and technical centers and intermediate units with a starting salary in the database, 441 start new teachers below $60,000. Twenty start below $40,000, including five listed at the state’s $18,500 minimum because their contracts have no salary schedule. 

The union estimates 398 will remain under $60,000 in 2027-28, based on contracts already signed.   

Starting pay is lower across southwestern Pennsylvania than in the rest of the state too. 

Of the 133 districts in the region with a starting salary in the union’s database, 92% start new teachers with a bachelor’s degree below $60,000, compared with about two-thirds elsewhere in the state. Six percent start below $40,000, compared with about 1% elsewhere. 

“It would be difficult to make ends meet on a starting salary under $40,000 with rising inflation and higher grocery and gas prices we are seeing today,” the union’s Lilienthal said. 

Bentworth’s pay scale shows how much salaries can change with years on the job. A new teacher with a bachelor’s degree started at $42,650 this year, Martin said. A teacher with 15 years makes about $55,000, and one with 18 years earns about $91,000, according to the district and state records. 

“I definitely know our bottom step’s low,” Martin said. “We are in negotiations this year, and that’s one of our highest priorities, to move our bottom steps up.” 

State records show Bentworth’s 83 teachers are bunched at the bottom and top of the scale: A quarter earns $46,050 or less, while 36 of them, or 43%, earn $90,000 or more. The median, $55,100, falls in between. 

“Twenty years ago, we were getting 250 applicants for one elementary position; now, when we post an elementary position, we’re happy to get more than 10 applicants,” Martin said. 

“We really try to make it a positive working environment that people want to be in, which is hard because as a new teacher coming out, oftentimes what they’re concerned about is that starting salary and, am I gonna be able to survive on it?” 

Namira Haris is a data journalist for NewsWorks Lab who can be reached at nharis@newsworkslab.com.

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