Teacher Pay in Rural Missouri Is Worse Than Almost Anywhere Else

Some of the highest-paid teachers in rural U.S. school districts earn over six figures. Missouri teachers in rural areas barely earn half of that.

In fact, teachers in rural Missouri school districts have the second-lowest pay in the country. That's according to a new study by the National Rural Education Association, or NREA, which has analyzed the conditions of rural education in all 50 states for the past 10 years.

No wonder some teachers are turning to controversial side hustles. Brianna Coppage, who made $42,000 a year teaching at St. Clair High School, found she could earn $10,000 a week on Only Fans. But her employer found out, and Coppage has since resigned after being put on leave.

Missouri's abysmally low teacher salaries aren't new, but the NREA's report sheds light on how the divide is even more stark rural areas. Rural Missouri teachers make almost $14,000 less than their peers in other states, according to the study, which describes Missouri teacher salaries as "critically low." Only Arkansas pays their teachers less. And only seven states have higher rates of what the study describes as "school community poverty."

Rural Missouri pupils are in a similar place. Out of the 46 states the NREA had data for, Missouri was the 10th worst for spending on instructional expenditures per pupil, with rural expenditures totaling to an average of $5,852 per student per year. The national average is $7,174.

As a result, Missouri was also one of 11 states identified to have the most "urgent need" for education policy to address rural schools and students' needs. The study didn't specify what policy Missouri needed, but generally, it noted that student transportation costs are high in rural areas, and rural districts tended to spend less on instructional expenditures per student compared to non-rural districts.

Also, many rural areas continue to lack basic internet access, with 12.4 percent of rural households lacking a broadband connection to stream educational videos and virtual classrooms.

Even so, despite that statistic and a range of other "spatial inequities," students in rural school districts are more likely to graduate high school than students in urban areas.

In fact, Missouri had the 24th-best graduation rate out of the 46 states included in the study, with its rural graduation rate was only 0.2 percent lower than the national average.

This could be, the study notes, because of the "unique strengths of rural communities."

In Missouri, it literally takes a village.

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