Target’s Coupon Fix for Cash-Strapped Teachers
“For many educators, the offer could be a big help. The vast majority—94 percent—of public-school teachers report spending their own money on supplies, according the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES). This is a significant expense for many of them, especially considering the average salary for K–12 public-school teachers is roughly $58,000. During the 2014–15 school year, according to the NCES report, teachers spent an average of $479 of their own money on school supplies. A separate analysis by Scholastic estimated teachers’ annual school-supply spending to be even higher. It also found that educators in high-poverty schools are far more likely than those at more affluent schools to fork out personal money for supplies. One out of 10 teachers at high-poverty schools spend $1,000 or more each year. And a separate NCES data set suggests that teachers’ school-supply spending rates have been this high for years.”