NJ Teaching Data by County

I wanted to run some of my own analysis on teacher salary data so I have downloaded all Data from the 2008-2009 APP NJ Public School Teachers site into my own database.

I will post the raw data in csv and excel format soon.  For now, here's my first query of the data with some county averages:

County	Average Salary	Num With Classes	Salary With Classes	Num Without Classes	Salary Without Classes	Ratio classes/no classes	Expense Ratio Classes/No Classes
ATLANTIC	63,211	4178	60,857	707	77,125	0.169	0.214
BERGEN	70,761	11617	66,363	2309	92,888	0.199	0.278
BURLINGTON	64,520	6409	61,167	1205	82,355	0.188	0.253
CAMDEN	65,204	7123	62,068	1383	81,352	0.194	0.254
CAPE MAY	66,293	1370	63,755	259	79,716	0.189	0.236
CHARTER	51,767	1649	48,982	260	69,430	0.158	0.223
CUMBERLAND	62,545	2265	59,315	679	73,319	0.300	0.371
ESSEX	72,813	10588	68,414	2398	92,237	0.226	0.305
GLOUCESTER	61,576	4081	58,291	855	77,259	0.210	0.278
HUDSON	71,663	6843	66,596	1352	97,312	0.198	0.289
HUNTERDON	63,000	2190	59,271	446	81,311	0.204	0.279
MERCER	68,925	5240	66,466	688	87,653	0.131	0.173
MIDDLESEX	67,469	9751	63,823	1981	85,419	0.203	0.272
MONMOUTH	64,770	9337	61,280	1802	82,857	0.193	0.261
MORRIS	67,544	7020	63,871	1362	86,473	0.194	0.263
OCEAN	60,381	6188	56,781	1114	80,383	0.180	0.255
PASSAIC	69,314	6644	64,999	1519	88,186	0.229	0.310
SALEM	59,274	1085	56,589	236	71,618	0.218	0.275
SOMERSET	65,118	4900	61,344	845	87,007	0.172	0.245
SUSSEX	67,890	2214	64,513	536	81,839	0.242	0.307
UNION	67,127	7471	63,279	1592	85,188	0.213	0.287
WARREN	62,085	1672	59,184	317	77,387	0.190	0.248

County	NJ County Name
Average Salary	Average Teacher Salary in County
Num With Classes	Num Teachers in County who have at least one class
Salary with Classes	Average Teacher salary in county with at least one class
Num Without Classes	Num "Teachers" in county without classes
Ratio classes/no classes	Ratio of teachers who have classes to no classes
Expense Ratio Classes/No Classes	$s spent for every class teacher towards a no class teacher

One thing that is obvious from this table - The average salaries are far from the 6 figure numbers the media has been talking about.

Chris Chrstie is wrong on teacher salaries and benefits

Welcome to my blog on why Chris Christie is dead wrong on just about everything!

My first post explores Chris Christie's feelings towards NJ teachers.

Let me start by saying I am not a NJ teacher.  I am not related to any NJ teachers.  I am not even a NJ parent.  I did vote for Chris Christie and I do think Chris Christie is dead wrong in his blaming teachers for the budget problems in NJ.  I can think of many better ways to fix the NJ budget crisis (I'll list them here in the next few days). 

Chris Christie seems to think NJ Teachers are overpaid. He has said this repeatedly. From his March 16th speech to the legislature:

“Political muscle fueled by intimidation tactics, political bullying and smears of public officials who dare to disagree. This conduct has set up an unfair system. Is it fair to have any public employees getting 4-5% salary increases every year, even when inflation is zero %, paid for by citizens struggling to survive? It is fair to have New Jersey taxpayers foot the bill for 100% of the health insurance costs of teachers and their families from the day they are hired until the day they die? Is it fair that teachers have a better, richer health plan than even state workers and pay absolutely nothing for it? “

But is Chris Christie correct? Of Course not!

Let’s look at some of the data. http://www.teachersalaryinfo.com/ lists salary data by state and is a great place to look for this info.

First, let’s look at raw salaries – Only 5 states have higher Teacher Salaries than NJ – MI, CT, DC, CA, MD. On the raw salary point it seems at first glance Chris Christie is correct. But, further analysis shows a different story. On this blog we’ll explore some of the numbers.

Second,  look at average teacher salary compared to median housing prices. Only 4 states (NY, AZ, CA, HI) pay their teachers worse than NJ when salary is compared to median housing prices. NJ teachers can’t afford to purchase houses in the state where they work! Does that sound like they are over-paid?

Next, compare NJ teacher salaries to median income of the state. Guess what, NJ is dead last in this category. From this statistic it sounds like everyone else in NJ might be overpaid, but I certainly can’t conclude teachers are overpaid.

Final comparison stat for today is cost of benefits. Chris Christie seems to thing teacher benefits are out of line. NJ ranks about middle of the road in this category. About half the states pay more for teacher benefits and half pay less. Don’t worry though, Chris Christie will fix this and make sure NJ ranks at the bottom.

So, if NJ teachers salaries are low compared to median housing prices and median income of the state and benefits are in line with every other state why is the per pupil spending in NJ only topped by NY and DC? We’ll explore this topic in the next post.

For now, let’s just think about how wrong Chris Christie is for thinking teachers are the problem in NJ.