Teachers have gone on strike in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Kentucky - this is how much money teachers make in every state

Sue Ogrocki/AP

Oklahoma teachers have the third lowest salaries in the country.

• The average salary for a public school teacher was $59,850 during the 2016-2017 academic year.
• Teachers have gone on strike in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Kentucky to encourage salary increases.
• The average teacher salary has dropped the most in Colorado, where educators earn 15% less than they did about 20 years ago when adjusted for inflation.

Teachers across the US want a raise. And in some states - West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Kentucky - they're walking out of the classroom to demand it.

Nationwide, the average public school teacher salary for the 2016-2017 school year was $59,850. While the nominal teacher salary has increased, when adjusted for inflation, average salary has dropped over time -about 1.6% lower than the $41,407 average in the 1999-2000 school year.

In February, West Virginia's public school teachers went on strike to protest the 1% and 2% salary increases scheduled over the next few years. After nine days, state legislators approved a 5% raise.

The West Virginia teacher walkout has encouraged other states to follow suit. (Technically, these are called "walkouts" because teacher strikes are illegal.)

Teachers in Oklahoma - where 20% of school districts have four-day school weeks due to budget restrictions - went on strike April 2 after a new budget was passed. Teachers haven't gotten a raise there since 2008, while class sizes are larger than the legally allowed maximum of 20 students per room.

Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin told CBS News that "teachers want more, but it's kind of like having a teenage kid that wants a better car."

In Kentucky, teachers are protesting too - fighting budget cuts and a plan to make teacher retirement pensions more like 401(k) accounts, according to The New York Times. In Arizona, teachers are asking for a 20% salary increase and are preparing for public protests.

States provide 46% of education funding and local governments are on the hook for the remaining 45.6% of costs, based on data from the National Education Association (NEA). Only 8.4% of all education funding for public schools comes from the federal government.

Education funding for schools and students varies widely from state to state. In Utah, $6,575 is spent on each student, while in New York spends $21,000 per pupil. The relationship between spending more money on education and higher academic achievement has been supported and opposed, with no clear answer available.

Teacher salaries have dropped the most in Colorado where educators earn 15% less now than they did about 20 years ago, when adjusted for inflation. On the flip side, Wyoming teachers have seen the largest pay raise with a salary about 20% higher than it would have been had it merely increased along with inflation.

Below, find out how much teachers make in each state. Salary data comes from the NEA, and inflation-adjusted salary increases were calculated by the National Center for Education Statistics. The amount spent per student comes from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2015 total public school spending per state.