OUR
BRIEFs
TACKLING THE CHALLENGE OF RAISING TEACHER PAY, STATE BY STATE
During former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's time in office, his department asked states to propose solutions to inequity in a State Plan to Ensure Equitable Access to Excellent Educators (otherwise known as an equity plan). The Teacher Salary Project paid close attention. Knowing how critical capable and stable teachers are, TSP followed which approaches that states are suggesting to address one essential component of their teacher recruitment and retention policy: teacher pay.
In this brief, the Teacher Salary Project found that although most states identify compensation as a key factor, few offer specific strategies to address the issue. The goal of this brief is to draw attention to a theme in the states' assessments: low teacher pay hampers their ability to attract and retain teachers. As states draft concrete equity plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the Teacher Salary Project wants to ensure that states will meaningfully address the teacher pay gaps that too often keep talented teachers from working in our neediest and hardest-to-staff subjects.
SAN FRANCISCO TEACHER SALARY BRIEFING 2026
San Francisco students are falling behind while classrooms sit empty. In 2025, 50 classrooms had no teacher on the first day of school. Prior to the school year starting, SFUSD sought to fill 90 - 145 classroom vacancies, according to reporting by The San Francisco Standard. Transitional Kindergarten classrooms suffered most acutely – at the start of the school year, 18 classrooms were still without a teacher.
This is not a one-year anomaly. Historically, SFUSD has seen a consistent teacher turnover rate of 10 percent, meaning 500+ teachers must be hired year after year. When this study was first conducted in 2023 for Daniel Lurie when he was running for office, the shortage was dire, with over sixty teacher-less classrooms on the first day of school. In 2023, the vacancies had increased significantly—with 145 unfilled classrooms prior to the first day of school, SFUSD became the only district in the state with vacancies in the triple digits, according to reporting by the San Francisco Examiner.
Read More—download our brief.