EDUCATOR WORKFORCE

Maine’s educators – from early childhood through adulthood – are “the workforce behind the workforce” in many different ways. Every day, teachers cultivate our next generation of citizens, workers, and community leaders. They not only build lifelong knowledge, skills, and relationships, but teachers also provide a critical source of care so that young people’s caregivers can participate in the labor force.

This section provides information on Maine educators specifically: who they are, how many they are, and what they bring to the field. The term “educator” intentionally encompasses a broad swath of teachers – those working with our youngest children up through adult learners. Since the structure of education varies significantly between early education and K-12 public school, data are reported separately here. While requirements for educator positions vary depending on the sector and the role, all educators in Maine play a critical role in cultivating our communities.

Maine teacher salaries are the lowest in New England.

Maine teacher salaries are not competitive with neighboring states. The average annual teacher salary in Maine ranks 30th in the nation.

*Source: National Education Association, Educator Pay Data 2025 (data based on 2023-24 school year).

Starting teacher salaries are not competitive with other occupations requiring a bachelor’s degree.

Further, nearly half of Maine teachers hold master’s degrees or higher, yet the average teacher salary statewide is only $66,000.

Maine teachers are more highly educated than the state’s population as a whole.

Teachers must have a bachelor’s degree to be professionally certified; nearly half of the workforce also has an advanced degree (master’s or higher). The chart below shows 13% of Maine’s general population with an M.A. or higher, compared with 45% of the Teacher population.

Source: Maine Department of Education Data Warehouse and data request.

The average Maine PreK-Grade 12 educator is 44 years old.

Across the nation, the average teacher age has been increasing over recent decades, though Maine is consistently at the top of the rankings of states with the oldest teachers. Maine also has one of the lowest percentages of teachers in their 20s, indicating that the state is does not have a robust pipeline of educators coming into the field. Scroll over the bars below to see the percent of teachers in each age band.

Maine educators have an average of 14 years of experience.

Nearly a third of Maine educators have been in the teaching workforce for over 20 years. While experience is helpful, this also signifies that Maine is facing a wave of future retirements without a robust pipeline of teachers to replace those retiring. Nationally, data shows that increasing numbers of early career teachers (70%) consider leaving the profession within the first five years.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2024 State Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates

Tracking the size of Maine’s educator workforce is challenging.

• Maine has about ~16,000 educators filling ~14,000 FTE roles in the Pre-K-12 workforce. It is not uncommon for districts to have part-time roles, increasing total educator headcount while keeping FTE counts steady, or for educators to fill multiple part-time roles, sometimes across districts.
• For the purpose of understanding Maine’s public educator workforce, we look at student-facing teacher roles, including those with the following titles: Classroom Teacher, English Language Learner Teacher, Gifted & Talented Teacher, Literacy Specialist, Special Education Teacher, Substitute Teacher-Long Term, and Title I Teacher. The information on this page does not include data on ed techs or administrators, which are also a substantial portion of workforce in the education field. Detailed information on all roles can be found at the Maine DOE’s Data Warehouse: Staff Data.

Data may be hard to track, but complexity is a necessity for schools.

• “Since it is common for school districts to employ a single individual to work in more than one type of role (or in the case of teachers, more than one subject area), it is desirable to encourage educators to develop expertise in more than one area. This affords more flexibility for both employers and educators. Cross-training may be especially useful in rural areas where there may not be adequate numbers of students to warrant full-time positions for some educational roles.” (Source: MEPRI, 2019)

There are multiple data systems for educator data, which are not integrated.

• The Maine Department of Education has two primary data systems containing information on the educator workforce: NEO, which tracks headcount, and MEIS, which houses certification data. Given that these databases are separate and the state does not track vacancy information, it’s not possible to get a clear picture of educator supply and demand in Maine. We know that there are more individuals holding current teacher certifications than are employed in the field, but Maine does not currently have a method for directly matching data on certified individuals with filled roles and/or educator vacancies.
• Career and Technical Educators are included in the Classroom Teacher headcount, while Adult Educators are tracked separately.
• There is not a unified data system for early childhood educators in the state, though broad information can be obtained through the Maine Roads to Quality Registry and the Department of Health and Human Services.

There are several strategies Maine can use to recruit and retain educators.

This is not an all-encompassing list. The thrust of these strategies relates to traditional public school educators, though many of these strategies can also be adapted for early educators.

• Increase minimum salaries. Maine made progress in recent years by increasing the state minimum salary for teachers to $40,000, but this has not kept up with inflation, nor is this a competitive salary for the level of education that teachers have and the work that is expected of them.
• Create alternative pathways to certification. Registered teacher apprenticeships will expand the pipeline into the profession. Currently, it takes a burdensome amount of time and money for people to enter the teaching field in Maine, especially career changers.
• Expand reciprocity with other states. Maine should make it easier for educators certified in other states to teach in Maine.
• Update educator preparation programs. Teachers are clear that traditional training is not keeping up with student needs in the classroom or the latest evidence-based strategies for teaching math and literacy.
• Let teachers lead from the classroom. Allow for more professional growth pathways within the profession that don’t remove excellent teachers from their classroom teaching roles.