Gretchen Burk teaches her 1st grade class at Evergreen Elementary in Allendale on Wednesday, March 8, 2017. (Cory Morse | MLive.com)

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MLive has been posting this week about Michigan teacher salaries, including an online database with the average pay in every Michigan school district; listings of the districts with the highest and lowest average salaries, and a post with fast facts about teacher pay.

Our coverage so far, as well as reader comments, noted that Michigan teacher salaries are typically based on years of experience and whether they have a master's degree, which means a district's average reflects the experience of their staff as well as their salary schedule.

But our initial database only provided district-level data on average salaries, not on the staff's age or credentials.

To provide more context, here's a look at the 2016-17 salary in each Michigan school district along with the percentage of teachers under age 30 and age 50 or older, as well as the percentage with a graduate degree or certificate.

The numbers come from the Michigan Department of Education.

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The numbers on the display page of the database can be sorted by clicking a column title. Click once for a top-to-bottom sort, and twice for bottom-to-top sort.

Note the average teacher salary is not available for most charter schools because staff are employed by a charter-school management company and fall into the category of contract employees. Blanks appear in the database where the numbers are not provided.

Average teacher pay is calculated by dividing the number of full-time equivalent teachers by total payroll. The number does not include benefits but it does include pay beyond base salary, such as stipends for coaching, longevity bonuses or extra pay for large class size.

Below is an interactive map showing 2016-17 average teacher salaries by county.

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Map of average 2016-17 teacher pay by county

Click on a county to see the averages for 2015-16 and 2016-17.

Public school teacher salaries averaged $71,936 in Macomb County, the highest county average in the state.

County with the lowest average is Montmorency in the northeast Lower Peninsula, where the average is $41,967.

To provide some statewide perspective, the average salary for a Michigan public school teacher was $62,280 in 2016-17, the first time in five years that the average has increased. The average salary peaked in 2009-10 at $63,024.

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Three factors have depressed teacher wages in recent years:

Raises have been minimal in recent years, and wage rollbacks have occurred in some districts.

Baby Boomers at the top of the salary scale continue to retire and are being replaced by younger, less expensive teachers. In 2008-09, teachers with at least 30 years in their district comprised 6.4% of all Michigan public school teachers. In 2016-17, that dropped to 2%. Meanwhile, the proportion of first-year teachers increased from 6% to 10% of the teaching pool.

Finally, the increase in charter schools appears to have driven down salaries. The Legislature lifted the cap on the number of charter schools in 2011, and charters enrolled about 10% of the public school population in 2015-16. As noted below, charters tend to pay less than traditional public schools.

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About 83% of Michigan public school teachers work in a traditional school district.

Charter schools employed about 11% of Michigan public school teachers and intermediate school districts, which typically provide countywide special-education services, employ another 6%.

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The state had 300 charter schools in 2016-17. However, only 29 eported salary figures, and their average teacher pay was $37,096.

In addition to a lower salary schedule, charter schools are more likely to have less-experienced teachers at the lower end of the pay scale.

In fall 2016, about 26% of charter school teachers were age 30 or under compared to 11% of teachers at traditional districts, and a quarter of charter school teachers were in their first year at that school compared to 8% of teachers in traditional districts.

In addition, teachers in traditional districts were almost three times more likely to have a master's degree or other certification beyond a bachelor's degree.

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The average Michigan teacher is a white woman in her 40s

In 2016-17, 92% of public school teachers were white and 77% were women. The largest age group are 40-somethings, who comprised 32 percent of the state's teachers.