S.H. Hobbs Jr., writing in The University News Letter, gives some interesting facts relative to the pay of white school teachers in North Carolina as compared with the pay of teachers in other States of the Union. the comparison is not very favorable to North Carolina, the most prosperous State south of the Mason and Dixon line and one of the most prosperous in the United States.
The facts as presented by Mr. Hobbs show that New York State ranks first, paying all white public school teachers, elementary and high school, an average salary of $1,938 in 1921-22. Arkansas comes last with an average salary of approximately $550 per year for white teachers.
The 15,198 white teachers in North Carolina in 1921-22 received a total salary of $10,953,682. The average annual salary paid all white teachers was $720, and the average was less in only four States, all southern with far less total or per inhabitant wealth.
The main factors that account for high or low teacher salaries are length of the school term, the size of the schools, the cost of living, taxable wealth, and quality of teachers, which is both a cause and result.
White teachers in North Carolina in 1921-22 received annual salaries average all the way from $1,259 in New Hanover county to $402 in Watauga. In 14 counties the average salary was less than $500 a year, while in only six counties was it as much as $1,000. In only one county in North Carolina are teachers as well paid upon average as in the United States as a whole.
Ninety-one of our counties pay less than the average for the states of the Union, while 62 counties pay their white teachers less than $700 a year upon an average. Good schools on the whole are impossible in such counties because it is impossible to employ good teachers at such ridiculously low wages.
Teachers’ salaries vary greatly in the 100 counties of North Carolina. There are three main factors that determine what our teachers receive, (1) The length of the school term, which average 119 days in Mitchell county and 180 days in New Hanover, for white schools. (2) the quality of the teachers. In Durham county the average teacher has had the equivalent of 2 ½ years in college, while in Cherokee the average teacher lacks nearly a half year of completing a high school course. (3) Local wealth and willingness, both of which vary greatly. A few very poor counties have good teachers, pay good salaries, and have long school terms. such counties have outstanding leadership, usually the county superintendent, who under our school system is the key factor in the local school situation.
As a rule, the wealthier counties pay good salaries, especially in the urban schools. It is impossible for the poorer rural counties to have as good teachers and schools as the wealthier ones, without heroic sacrifice. This is evident when we find that the taxable wealth per white inhabitant is 15 times as large in the richest county as in the poorest county.
From the editorial page of the Concord Daily Tribune, Tuesday, March 18, 1924. J.B. Sherrill, editor and publisher; W.M. Sherrill, Associate Editor.
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