Education

Oklahoma teacher pay ranks higher than many realize

July 16, 2025

Ray Carter

In a press release issued earlier this year, House Democratic Leader Cyndi Munson of Oklahoma City declared that Oklahoma ranks “last in the region for teacher pay.”

That statement received a good deal of attention at the Oklahoma state Capitol for one major reason: It wasn’t true.

A report issued in April by the National Education Association (NEA), a teachers’ union, showed that Oklahoma’s average teacher salary in 2023-2024 was $61,330, which was higher than the average in three of the six states that border Oklahoma, not last in the region.

The Oklahoma State School Boards Association (OSSBA), a lobbyist entity funded with schools’ taxpayer dollars, similarly reported that the average teacher pay in Oklahoma surged from $45,292 in the 2016-2017 school year to $61,686 by the 2024-2025 school year.

In raw-dollar terms, OSSBA also reported that the average teacher salary in Oklahoma is higher than the average in three of six bordering states—beating out Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri—and trailing Texas by less than $2,100.

Based on the raw dollar figure, the NEA ranked Oklahoma’s average teacher pay 34th highest among the 50 states.

But the raw dollar figure isn’t the end of the story, because there are significant differences in the cost of living from state to state. One recent report ranked Oklahoma the second-lowest cost state in the nation.

“It just boils down to the fact that a dollar in New York is not going to go as far as a dollar in Oklahoma,” said Byron Schlomach, an economist and researcher.

Put simply, the buying power of the average teacher salary in Oklahoma is often equivalent to, or even exceeds, the average salary in other states, even when those states may pay a higher nominal salary to teachers, as readily available state cost-of-living calculators make clear.

For example, the NEA report shows the average teacher in Colorado is paid $68,647, which on paper exceeds the average pay in Oklahoma. But due to cost-of-living differences, the buying power of the average teacher’s pay in Oklahoma is actually slightly greater than the Colorado salary.

The same thing holds true when comparing the NEA-reported average salary for teachers in Texas ($62,463) and Oklahoma ($61,330). While the cost-of-living difference between Oklahoma and Texas is not dramatic, it is enough that the average teacher salary in Oklahoma provides slightly greater buying power than the average pay of a Texas teacher, as reported by the NEA.

In some cases, the differences are stark. The NEA reported that Hawaii paid an average teacher salary of $74,222 and Rhode Island paid an average teacher salary of $82,189. But Oklahoma’s average teacher pay of $61,330 is equivalent to around $86,000 in both Hawaii and Rhode Island.

Schlomach said policymakers should focus on the real buying power of an Oklahoma teacher’s salary when making comparisons with other states, not just the nominal value. Otherwise “for us to try to catch up with a high-cost-of-living state like New York or California is just ludicrous,” Schlomach said.

When comparing cost-of-living differences in all states, Oklahoma’s average teacher pay ranks 29th best based on real buying power, according to figures from an online cost-of-living calculator. As a result, while Oklahoma teacher pay is not the highest in the nation, it’s also nowhere near the bottom.

Schlomach said those who claim Oklahoma is among the nation’s “lowest” in teacher pay,  while ignoring real buying power, are untethering policy decisions from economic reality.

“This is just nothing but political grandstanding,” Schlomach said, “in an attempt to shame us when we absolutely do not deserve it.”