Missouri Teachers Face The Lowest Salaries In The Nation

I've heard it said that you should never confuse education with intelligence and there's probably some wisdom in that, but it's still not good news that a map seems to prove that no state pays their high school teachers less than Missouri does.

I just saw a disturbing map shared on the Missouri sub-Reddit which claims to show the states where high school teachers are paid the most and the least. Spoiler Alert: for Missouri, it's that last one.

Hmmm…
byu/Slight_Outside5684 inmissouri

But, is this map really accurate?

Since I never take things shared on Reddit as absolute fact, I did my own research and found from the National Education Association that Missouri is really the place for the lowest high school teacher salary in America. They say "State average teacher salaries ranged from those in California ($101,084), New York ($95,615), and Massachusetts ($92,076) at the high end to Mississippi ($53,704), Florida ($54,875), and Missouri ($55,132) at the low end."

I went to only Missouri public schools during my childhood and am convinced that I received the best education they could give me. My teachers were exemplary especially considering they had to deal with me. I was once dared to destroy a pencil sharpener and accepted the challenge so please never do what I did. I can look back now and understand how vital each of my teachers were in who I eventually became (the good parts, not the obvious bad ones). This low pay will not attract the talented educators that Missouri needs to help prevent future generations from destroying pencil sharpeners like I did. It's the least we can do.