2026 Edition · An annual reference on what work pays

Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education

Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ metropolitan area. Estimated employment 16,560.

Data released May 2025 BLS OEWS · SOC 25-2021
Fig. 1 — The wage rule

Where you sit in the distribution

Drag the marker, or type a figure
$59,180 · 50th
$47,39010th
$48,84025th
$59,18050th
$67,17075th
$81,52090th

That is the medianhalf of people in this occupation in Phoenix earn more.

Table 1 — Adjusted

$59,180 in Phoenix buys what $57,300 buys across the country as a whole.

Phoenix's regional price parity is 103.3 — above the national average, so the nominal figure overstates what it buys. Adjusted figures for other metros are in the nearby-metros table below.

Table 2 — Nearby metros

The same job, elsewhere in Arizona

Adjusted figures apply each metro's regional price parity, so the columns are directly comparable.

Metro areaMedianAdjustedRPPvs. Phoenix
Phoenix This page$59,180$57,300103.3
Flagstaff$53,900$53,700100.3−6.2%
Yuma$48,360$52,20092.7−8.9%
Sierra Vista$47,980$53,80089.2−6.1%
Prescott Valley$47,400$48,20098.3−15.8%
Tucson$47,220$48,70096.9−14.9%
Lake Havasu City$46,460$49,40094.1−13.8%

Price parity and difference against Phoenix are in the full table on wider screens.

Table 3 — Employers

Who pays what

Median offered salary from visa filings, which disclose employer, title and exact figure. Government wage surveys never publish at this level.

EmployerMedian offerRangeFilingsvs. metro
Maricopa Unified School District$65,925$57k – $72k5+11.4%
Deer Valley Unified School District 97$59,650$51k – $64k5+0.8%
Toltec School District 22$51,600$46k – $69k7−12.8%
Isaac School District NO 5$50,850$49k – $57k6−14.1%
Buckeye Elementary School District NO 33$45,950$46k – $49k7−22.4%

Offer ranges and filing counts are in the full table on wider screens.

Fig. 2 — Five-year trend

Nominal against real

The same median, once as published and once restated in 2025 dollars.

45k50k55k60k65k 20212022202320242025
Nominal, as published Real, in 2025 dollars US$ thousands

Published pay rose 21.6% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it still rose 2.4% — pay has outrun prices since 2021. The two lines meet at the right edge by construction, since 2025 is the base year.

Sources

How this page was made

Wage data
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release. Public domain.
Price parity
Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities, 2024.
Employer pay
Department of Labor, Labor Condition Application disclosures, FY 2025. The table draws on 30 certified filings across 5 employers.
Inflation
Real figures deflate by CPI-U annual averages (BLS, all items, US city average).
Employment
16,560 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
Occupation
SOC 25-2021, Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education. Mapped to our taxonomy as elementary-school-teachers-except-special-education.

Percentiles are reported exactly as released and are never interpolated between published values. Visa filings record offered base salary at time of application, exclude equity and bonus, and skew toward larger employers — treat the employer table as a floor, not an average. We take no payment from employers, recruiters or anyone else for how any figure is presented.