North Carolina has leapfrogged some states in rankings of teacher pay.
Teachers here received an average pay of $49,837 last year, according to the National Education Association. While that’s good enough to move this state from ranking 41 to ranking 35, it still lags the national average by $9,000.
Teacher pay in North Carolina for the 2016-17 school year was up about 4 percent compared with the prior year.
However, there's another way to look at the numbers.
Adjusting for inflation, the state's average teacher salary fell more than 13 percent from 1999 to 2015, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Education advocates say this drop has led to increased teacher turnover, and decreased enrollment at North Carolina's education schools.
Teacher salaries in North Carolina are funded by the state, but supplemented in some school districts.