It is a touchy subject, but public school teachers in Milwaukee are paid $100k in salary and benefits on average. It is often stated that school teachers are underpaid, but it is really the benefits that provide them with earnings levels much above the averages. As a comparison, the median salary in New York and Los Angeles are about $68,000 and I can tell you that not too many of those receive a pension or even decent health care.
What is really interesting is that Milwaukee is one of only two public school systems (the other being Chicago) of the nation’s fifty largest school systems that requires that Milwaukee teachers meet Milwaukee city residency requirements. Possibly as a result, Milwaukee lags other Wisconsin school districts in terms of teacher experience. Only 60% of MPS teachers have five or more years of district experience and only 62% have more than five years of total teaching experience. For the rest of the state this stands at 73% and 81%.
