HOW WE SEE IT: Salary Gaps For Teachers Raise Questions

The wide gaps in teacher pay among Arkansas’ school districts raise more questions about local administration among districts than the equity of the school funding formula.

The gap in average pay between the best-paying districts and the worst has widened after seven years of school reform mandated by the state Supreme Court - and massive tax increases to pay for them.

That salary figure has gone from a difference of $22,372 a year to $23,394 a year between the averages of the top 10 and the bottom 10.

We expect the same old requests for a fixed, equal pay scale for all teachers or more special legislation for districts at the poor end of the pay scales.

We’re absolutely opposed to a “one size fits all” statewide salary scale. Some average salary appropriate for all of Arkansas won’t allow school districts up here to compete with salaries in the private sector, at least not once the economy revives.

Now, on to addressing the gap.

Neither the bare figures nor sledgehammer proposals to force a fix answer the glaring question here: Why is there a gap in the first place?

The answer is not local wealth. The bulk of public schools’ money comes from the state. While the school funding formula is complicated by an array of attachments, the core principle is simplicity itself.

Every district gets an equal amount of money for each students. The “attachments” give more money for each child who is living in poverty or has to be taught to speak English.

That’s the principle, at least. Things like constantly shifting enrollment numbers make hitting that goal a lot more difficult in real life.

We can’t help ourselves from reminding readers that this funding formula was agreed upon by many of the state’s lawmakers on the assumption that “rich” Northwest Arkansas would get less money. When the numbers were run, however, it was found that many children in our then-thriving region were living in poverty. In fact, the percentages of the population in poverty was remarkably similar to the rest of Arkansas.

So here we are: All districts receive state money through the same formula, yet the gap grows.

We believe we know the reason. We believe thenattorney general Mike Beebe told the Arkansas Rural Education Association the reason in a meeting in Eureka Springs where this topic came up years ago.

Be careful asking for equal teacher pay, he warned them, because it will require the state to take a serious look at classroom sizes.

We would like to remind those who demand equal pay for equal work that a teacher who has 25 students in his or her classroom bears a very unequal work load compared to one who has 15.

To insist on equal pay for equal work is as much a demand for equal work as it is for equal pay.

It’s also a demand for administrator accountability.

It is a demand that the state get straight answers to simple questions, like an accurate accounting of how much each district spends on its athletics programs and its administrative costs. In short, it demands an answer to why districts living off the same funding formula can’t manage to devote similar shares of their resources to equal per-teacher pay.

Northwest Arkansas lawmakers will not go along with one-size-fits-all salary schedules or legislation that favors one region over another. We’re confident of that. If they waiver, we’ll be quick to shore them up.

We expect the parents of the students in our schools will be quicker than their newspaper, too.

When we go looking for money to equalize teacher pay, we’ll look first at the money already being spent.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 12/28/2009

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