California Teaching Salaries and Benefits
California’s public school teachers earn some of the highest salaries in the country, with median pay ranging from $82,550 for kindergarten teachers to $101,370 for high school teachers as of May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Teachers also build a pension through CalSTRS, while health coverage usually comes through their own district or a regional consortium, with a smaller number of districts using CalPERS instead.
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A base salary is only part of what California pays its teachers. Between a defined-benefit pension through CalSTRS and health coverage arranged through your district, the state’s total compensation package often rivals or beats what higher sticker-price salaries offer elsewhere. Here’s what the numbers actually show, using the latest BLS wage data alongside current CalSTRS figures and district health benefit patterns.
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What California Teachers Earn
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, median annual pay for California teachers ranges from $82,550 for kindergarten teachers to $101,370 for secondary school teachers as of May 2025. Elementary and middle school teachers fall in between, both earning median wages just under $100,000 a year.
| Occupation | Median Annual Wage | Job Growth (2024–2034) | Avg. Annual Openings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kindergarten Teachers | $82,550 | -2.8% | 780 |
| Elementary School Teachers | $99,650 | -1.7% | 9,670 |
| Middle School Teachers | $98,950 | -1.7% | 2,320 |
| High School Teachers | $101,370 | -1.5% | 5,780 |
The BLS projects a modest statewide decline in teaching positions through 2034, driven mainly by enrollment trends rather than budget cuts. Even so, thousands of openings are expected every year from retirements and teachers leaving the profession, particularly among elementary teachers, where California expects 9,670 average annual openings.
Your actual paycheck depends heavily on your district’s salary schedule. Nearly every California district uses a lane-and-step structure: steps reward years of experience, and lanes reward additional education, so a teacher with a master’s degree can out-earn a same-tenure colleague with only a bachelor’s by a wide margin. Ask any district’s HR office for its current salary schedule before you sign a contract, since the same years of experience can mean very different pay depending on the lane you qualify for.
How CalSTRS Retirement Works
Every teacher hired by a California public school joins the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or CalSTRS, which pays a lifetime monthly pension instead of a 401(k)-style account. Your benefit is set by a formula, not by your account balance: age factor times service credit times final compensation.
Which rules apply depends on when you were hired. Teachers first hired to CalSTRS-covered service on or before December 31, 2012, fall under the “2% at 60” benefit structure. You can retire as early as 50 with at least 30 years of service credit, or at 55 with at least five years. Your age factor starts at 1.1% at 50, reaches the standard 2% at age 60, and climbs to a maximum of 2.4% if you wait until 63 or later, and 30 or more years of service adds a 0.2% career factor on top, up to that same 2.4% cap.
Teachers first hired on or after January 1, 2013, fall under “2% at 62” instead, under the state’s pension reform law (PEPRA). This tier has no early-retirement option at 50: the earliest you can retire is 55, with at least five years of service credit. Your age factor starts at 1.16% at 55, reaches 2% at 62, and maxes out at 2.4% at 65 or later. The 2% at 62 tier also skips the career factor and uses a lower compensation cap.
“Final compensation” is your highest average earnable compensation over a set period, and that period differs by tier too. Under 2% at 60, it’s your highest 12 consecutive months if you have at least 25 years of service credit, or your highest 36 consecutive months otherwise. Under 2% at 62, it’s always your highest 36 consecutive months, with no one-year option available.
Contribution rates also differ by tier. For the 2025-26 school year, “2% at 60” members contribute 10.25% of their creditable earnings to the Defined Benefit Program, while “2% at 62” members contribute 10.205%, a rate that’s recalculated annually based on the plan’s actuarial normal cost. None of that contribution determines your pension amount. It just funds the shared Teachers’ Retirement Fund that pays every member’s benefit under the formula above.
Your employer and the state add to that fund too. Employers contribute a combined 19.10% of payroll, a rate the CalSTRS board has held steady since 2021. The state contributes an additional 10.828% to the Defined Benefit Program, plus 2.5% of members’ earnings into a separate account, the Supplemental Benefit Maintenance Account, which helps protect the purchasing power of pension benefits against inflation over time.
Those contributions add up. CalSTRS covers more than 1 million members, retirees, and beneficiaries statewide. Members who retired in 2025 did so at an average age of 63, with 24.9 years of average service credit and an average annual Member-Only Benefit of $68,880, or about $5,740 a month. If you want to run your own numbers, explore the California State Teachers’ Retirement System directly. In addition to your Defined Benefit pension, you can build a separate Defined Benefit Supplement (DBS) account whenever you earn more than one full year of service credit in a school year, for example through summer school, an extra teaching assignment, or a stipended role like yearbook advisor or coach. Under the “2% at 60” tier, you contribute 8% of that extra earnings and your employer contributes 8.25% (8% of which is credited to your DBS account, with the remaining 0.25% funding sick-leave service credit costs elsewhere in the Defined Benefit Program). Under “2% at 62,” you contribute 9%, and your employer contributes 8%. Your DBS account earns interest annually at a rate the Teachers’ Retirement Board sets each July, and it pays out at retirement as a lump sum, an additional monthly annuity, or both.
Health Insurance for California Teachers
Most California teachers get health insurance directly through their own school district, not through a single statewide system. Many districts either self-insure or join a regional Joint Powers Authority (JPA) that pools several districts together to negotiate rates, so your carrier, plan choices, and how much of the premium your district covers can look very different from one district to the next. Health benefits have also become a frequent point of contention at the bargaining table, as premium costs have climbed well ahead of salary growth in recent years.
A smaller number of California school and community college districts, including some of the state’s largest like Los Angeles Unified, participate in the CalPERS Health Program instead. That program is the largest purchaser of public employee health benefits in California and the second-largest public purchaser in the nation after the federal government, covering more than 1.5 million members and their families across all its participating state and local agencies, not just schools.
If your district does participate in CalPERS, you’ll typically choose among Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) plans, which require a primary care physician and in-network care at a fixed copay; Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plans, which let you see out-of-network providers at a higher cost without a required referral; and, in counties with limited HMO access, Exclusive Provider Organization (EPO) plans, which combine HMO-style network care with PPO-style referral flexibility. Whether or not your district uses CalPERS, ask your district’s HR or benefits office directly to confirm which system, carrier, and plan options actually apply to you. For districts that do participate, explore CalPERS’ health plan overview for a full breakdown of coverage.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average teacher salary in California?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, median annual pay ranges from $82,550 for kindergarten teachers to $101,370 for high school teachers as of May 2025. Your actual salary depends on your district’s lane-and-step schedule, which rewards both years of experience and additional degrees or certifications.
Do California teachers get Social Security?
Most California public school teachers do not pay into Social Security through their teaching job, since CalSTRS serves as their primary retirement system instead. If you worked other jobs that did pay into Social Security, the Windfall Elimination Provision previously reduced those benefits, though the Social Security Fairness Act, signed in January 2025, eliminated that reduction for benefits payable after December 2023.
How many years do I need to work before I get a CalSTRS pension?
You vest in CalSTRS after five years of service credit, and age 55 is the earliest retirement age for every member. If you’re in the “2% at 60” tier (hired on or before December 31, 2012), you can also retire as early as 50 with at least 30 years of service. Either way, your monthly payment grows the longer you wait, since your age factor keeps climbing until 63 for “2% at 60” members or 65 for “2% at 62” members.
What’s the difference between CalSTRS and CalPERS for teachers?
CalSTRS handles retirement pensions specifically for California’s teachers and other certificated school employees, and every public school teacher in the state is a CalSTRS member. CalPERS is different: it’s the retirement system for classified school staff and other public employees, and it also administers health insurance, but only for the limited number of school districts that choose to participate in the CalPERS Health Program.
Can I choose which health insurance plan I get as a California teacher?
It depends on your district. If your district participates in CalPERS, you typically choose among the HMO, PPO, or EPO plans available in your region during open enrollment. If your district self-insures or belongs to a regional Joint Powers Authority instead, your options come from that district’s own plan menu, so check with your HR or benefits office directly.
- California pays some of the highest teacher salaries in the country: BLS median wages run from $82,550 for kindergarten teachers to $101,370 for high school teachers as of May 2025.
- Your pension tier depends on your hire date: teachers hired before 2013 fall under “2% at 60,” while those hired since fall under “2% at 62,” each with its own age factor and contribution rate.
- You vest in CalSTRS after five years: retirement eligibility starts at 55 for everyone, or as early as 50 with 30 years of service if you’re in the older “2% at 60” tier.
- Health coverage usually comes through your district, not CalPERS: most teachers get coverage from their district’s own plan or a regional consortium, with only a limited number of districts using the CalPERS Health Program.
- Openings remain steady despite a modest projected decline: California expects thousands of annual teaching vacancies from retirements and turnover even as enrollment-driven job growth softens slightly through 2034.
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May 2025 US Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS wage estimates and 2024-2034 employment projections for Kindergarten and Elementary School Teachers, Middle School Teachers, and High School Teachers, reflect state and national data, not school-specific outcomes. State or district job-growth projections are sourced separately from national BLS outlook data. Conditions vary by school sector, subject area, and district. Data accessed July 2026.
