Mississippi spends a larger portion of its K-12 education budget on administration than every other state in the South, despite also paying little to assistant teachers, according to a new report released by the Mississippi Office of the State Auditor.
“I was alarmed to learn from our analysts that assistant teachers in Mississippi are making less than state employees working as janitors,” said State Auditor Shad White. “My office has written reports about the need to cut the fat and pay teachers more, but we also need to talk about getting dollars to assistant teachers, because money spent in the classroom makes the biggest difference for our students.”
The minimum assistant teacher salary remains lower than all other state jobs despite requiring more qualifications. Assistant teacher salaries also lag behind nearly every other private sector occupation in Mississippi. Only 6 of the 755 jobs tracked by the Mississippi Department of Employment Security pay less.
If Mississippi increased assistant teacher salaries to the regional average, then it would require a $67.3 million investment and result in a nearly $6,000 pay raise.
In previous reports from the Office of the State Auditor, auditors identified enough savings from procurement reforms, reduced administrative salaries, and cancelled unused software in schools to finance the pay raise.
