Maine has been found to be one of the worst states for teachers in the entire country.
According to a new study from personal finance website WalletHub, Maine was ranked as the third worst state in which to be a teacher.
Factoring into this calculation were statistics related to compensation, school quality, student-teacher ratios, and projected turnover, among other things.
Despite a fairly strong showing on metrics related to the academic and work environment, Maine was found to be struggling significantly when it comes to the opportunity and competition for teachers.
The methodology section of the report explains that the latter category of elements were given a greater weight in the rankings because these factors “are integral to a well-balanced personal and professional life.”
While Maine came in 18th in terms of the state’s academic and work environment, the state was the next to the worst for teachers in terms of opportunity and competition, followed only by New Hampshire.
This extremely low ranking appears to be primarily driven by low salaries, as Maine was found to have the second lowest annual salary for teachers when adjusted for the cost of living. Only Hawaii was found to being paying teachers less each year given the cost of living.
The only other reported category in which Maine fell into either extreme was with respect to the student-teacher ratio, where Maine was found to have the third best in the country, led by Washington DC and Vermont.
New Hampshire, which also appears on the positive side of this particular list, follows a similar pattern to Maine more broadly, scoring well with respect to their academic and work environment but presenting a very poor picture when it comes to teachers’ opportunity and competition.
The top three states for teachers in the country — Virginia, Utah, and Washington — all scored relatively well across both categories, with all three states nearly falling into the top ten for both sets of criteria. The only exception to this is the fact that Utah ranked 11th for its academic and work environment.
Click Here to Read the Full Results of the Report
A separate WalletHub report published over the summer found the quality of Maine’s early education system to be greatly lacking, despite an overall high ranking in the study.
While the state falls into the top fifty percent in terms access, it’s overall ranking is brought up significantly by its 8th place score for resources and economic support.
This placement in the top ten is reflective of a range of figures, including the total spending per child enrolled in preschool, the change in state spending per child enrolled in preschool, and the amount of monthly child care co-payment fees as a share of family income.
Where the state drops off, however, is in terms of quality, landing 39th in the country, a ranking that incorporated a wide range of factors into its calculation.
For example, the study considered early learning and development standards, curriculum supports, professional development opportunities for staff, the availability of vision, hearing, & health screening & referral, and a continuous quality improvement system, among other things.
This, however, was not the only recent study to have found Maine’s education system to be struggling.
The report is published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in Baltimore that focuses on “developing a brighter future for millions of children and young people with respect to their educational, economic, social and health outcomes.”
Despite this, academic outcomes for Maine students are poor not only in comparison to other states, but also in relation to Maine children just a few years ago.
Nearly three-quarters of fourth graders are not proficient in reading, and roughly the same share of eighth graders are not proficient in math. These deficiencies are up from 64 percent and 66 percent in 2019 respectively.
This is roughly five to ten points worse than the Northeast average and two to four points worse than the national average.
14 percent of high school students were found to not graduate on time, a figure in line with the national average.
