Nathaniel Cary

ncary@greenvillenews.com

We're not as bad as North Carolina, but South Carolina still ranked near the bottom of Wallethub's 2014 ranking of the best and worst states for teachers.

South Carolina ranked 45th of 51 in the report (which also ranked Washington, D.C.), just ahead of Arizona and Hawaii but well behind other Southeastern states like Louisiana (26), Alabama (31) or Georgia (33). North Carolina ranked dead last.

Wallethub analyzed 18 different metrics to find teachers' opportunity and competition, and the academic and work environment for each state.

South Carolina's low scores in its average starting salaries for teachers, 10-year change in teacher salaries and public school spending per student played a major part in ranking South Carolina 45th overall, said Raz Daraban, communications manager for Wallethub, a personal finance website.

The ranking didn't take into account any changes that went into effect for this school year, such as Gov. Nikki Haley's education reform bill that added early-grades reading coaches, funds technology improvements and sends more money to schools with poor students.

The education bill, which Haley called a first step in a decade-long transformation of the state's public schools, did not address teacher salaries.

South Carolina's average starting teacher salary is $32,389, below the 2012-2013 national average of $36,141, according to the National Education Association.

Greenville County's starting teacher salary for 2014-2015 is $33,259 for a teacher with a bachelor's degree.

"Sadly, insofar as these kinds of lists go, South Carolina continues to rank near the bottom for teachers," Bernadette Hampton, president of the South Carolina Education Association, said in a statement. "Most certainly inadequate compensation is a contributor to this statistic. Lawmakers in South Carolina have the ability to improve conditions for teaching and recognize teachers as the highly educated professionals that they are. Yet, year after year, they fail to take substantive, sustainable action. One-time money does little to change a perplexing compensation paradigm."

South Carolina teachers earn 86 percent of the national average of $56,103.The average salary for South Carolina teachers is $48,375, which places us at 39th in the country, according to the SCEA.

Starting teachers earn 15 percent less than college-educated professionals in comparable occupations, Hampton said.

"An educator's starting salary should be comparable to that of other college graduates who have similar education, training, and responsibilities," she said. "An estimated 62 percent of teachers work second jobs just to make ends meet. Providing competitive compensation is imperative if we are to restore the professional status of teachers."

The state could face a teacher shortage in coming years if it doesn't fully fund public education and raise teacher salaries, she said. It's losing an estimated 5,200 teachers a year while 2,200 graduate from college teaching programs each year, she said.

The report ranked Wyoming the top state for teachers, followed by Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Virginia.

See the rankings at www.wallethub.com/edu.

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