Teacher Starting Salary vs. Annual Amount Spent on Inmates at Educator®

Teacher Starting Salary vs. Annual Amount Spent on Inmates

4 Comments Published September 17th, 2009 in Educational News

Some salary comparisons have become cliché. Yes, everyone knows that teachers make a fraction of what famous athletes make. Why? Well, while General Chemistry and AP Statistics can be highly interesting, they don’t exactly bring in droves of paying fans. That being said, we found one comparison that is truly alarming – the amount taxpayers spend on a single prisoner annually to the starting salary of teachers. Not only are there several states that pay significantly more for prisoners per year, but also in total, nearly half of the states either pay more for prisoners or have a minimal difference between the two. Maine, believe it or not, spends over $17,000 more per inmate than they do per teacher.

[Click the map to enlarge.]

4 Responses to “Teacher Starting Salary vs. Annual Amount Spent on Inmates”

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1 Mark Montoya Sep 21st, 2009 at 3:16 pm

Did you see the recent story of an insane killer who escaped while on a field trip to the Washington State Fair? Crazy. True. Insane! What is going on when we spend more money on convicts than the future? Perhaps this is a perpetual cycle…?
2 Martin Sep 22nd, 2009 at 4:05 pm

This is very sad that we spend more on crooks than on teachers. We live in very bad times.
3 NancyEH Sep 22nd, 2009 at 5:45 pm

This article has been hitting the Twitterverse hard in Maine today!