New Hampshire and Maine Rank Among Worst States to Teach in
Editor's note: This article was written by a Townsquare Media Northern New England contributor and may contain the individual's views, opinions, or personal experiences.
God bless our teachers.
I mean it.
Teaching is a selfless profession. These days, teachers get into the profession fully aware of the salary and sacrifices they are about to make.
For a long time, but especially in the past three years, teachers have been stretched extremely thin.
In 2019, when the world was completely shifting jobs, teachers were pulled in every direction. Needing to make sure their own mental health was in check during a worldwide pandemic came second to students and families.
Teachers shifted to online, in person, hybrid, back to online, and all kinds of chaotic switches in between.
Teachers have been overworked and underpaid - a tale as old as time. The narrative has been heightened more by the pandemic; however, the working conditions to compensation has been out of wack for longer than just the Covid-19 pandemic.
A study was done to see what states were the best and worst to teach in. With two of my family members in education, I needed to see where my home state, New Hampshire, ranked.
Turns out, it's not too good.
We ranked second...to last.
Including the District of Columbia, out of the 51 "states", New Hampshire ranked 50th. The 603 was second only to Hawaii.
The ranking system was weighted, which means a lot went into each category to find the best and worst states to teach in. These items included starting salary, salary after 10 years, salary projected in 2028, time to achieve tenure status, quality of school system, quality of school system, pupil to teacher ratio, and more.
NH ranked dead last in the category of "opportunity and competition."
The image below really captures the struggle in NH.
The map indicates that the lighter the state, the worse off the teaching conditions are. The more blue, the better.
New Hampshire is practically white, compared to nearby states like Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut.
Maine did not fare too well either, ranking #8.