Maryland now has a minimum salary for new teachers — but pay varies widely by district

Maryland’s landmark plan for education reform set a floor for teacher pay: $60,000.

This school year, for the first time, that’s the base amount public school teachers must be paid statewide. But some districts pay thousands more than the minimum, so significant gaps between counties remain.

Montgomery County leads the state in starting salaries for teachers with a bachelor’s degree, followed by Prince George’s County, according to data reported to the state education department.

These two large districts sit in the Washington suburbs, where the cost of living is among the highest in the state. They also must contend with competition from D.C. and Virginia.

The state’s top-performing school system, Worcester County, has among the lowest starting pay for teachers. In this tiny district on the Eastern Shore, educators’ beginning salary sits at the minimum required under the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future.

For several small districts, meeting the minimum teacher pay meant stretching their budgets at an already difficult financial time.

Increasing teacher pay was a cornerstone of the Blueprint, which passed in 2021. At the time, a $60,000 salary represented an increase of almost $15,000 for some teachers in Maryland.

State leaders are now pointing to higher salaries as one reason they’ve been able to recruit more teachers and reduce the educator vacancy rate.

State Superintendent of Schools Carey Wright recently announced that the number of open teaching jobs in Maryland public schools had fallen from a high of 2,145 in 2022 to just under 600.