PORTLAND (AP) – Teacher salaries in Maine are the lowest in New England and nearly $7,000 below the national average, according to a new report released by the National Education Association.

The study says public school teachers in Maine earned an average of $39,864 for the 2003-2004 school year, ranking it 35th of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. The national average was $46,752.

Rob Walker, president of the Maine Education Association, said teacher salaries in Maine climbed to 29th-highest in the country in the late 1980s. But the salary ranking has been falling since the state’s fiscal woes of the early 1990s when the state had to slash its budget, raid the retirement system and put a lid on school spending.

“We’ve always been fifth or sixth in New England,” Walker said. “It’s just recently that we’ve fallen farther behind.

The NEA report, “Rankings and Estimates: Rankings of the States 2004 and Estimates of School Statistics 2005,” provides rankings in categories such as school enrollment, salaries and student expenditures. The NEA represents 2.7 million educators nationally.

The report said that teacher salaries have remained relatively flat in the past decade, growing just 2.9 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars. In Maine, teacher salaries rose 1.2 percent over the same period.

While teacher salaries in Maine rank low, the state’s per-student expenditures are near the top of the list.

For the 2002-2003 school year, spending amounted to $10,145 per student, ranking Maine eighth in the nation, the report said. The average per-student expense nationally was $8,248.

Walker said the high student expenditures are due partly to the large number of schools in Maine, resulting in high administrative and operating costs. As student enrollment falls – it fell 1 percent between 2002 and 2003 – the per-student costs could continue to go up, at least until more schools begin consolidating services.

The report said that Connecticut teachers have the highest average annual salaries, at $57,337, followed by Washington, D.C., California, New Jersey and New York.

South Dakota had the lowest average teacher salaries, at $33,236, behind Oklahoma, North Dakota and Mississippi.

AP-ES-06-24-05 1036EDT