PAR recommends against across-the-board teacher pay raises

A proposal before state lawmakers to raise teacher pay by $2,400 n to reach the Southern regional average statewide n still will leave teacher salaries in nearly two-thirds of Louisiana’s school districts below that marker, a new report says.

Average pay in 51 of the 69 public school districts wouldn’t match the regional average despite the pay raise, says the report released Thursday by the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana. Average teacher pay in some districts would be as much as 27 percent less than the Southern average even with the raise, according to the report.

PAR says that continued inequity won’t help Louisiana’s efforts to retain teachers.

“While Louisiana’s average pay may soon reach that of its neighboring states, teachers in the lower-paying districts will continue to have an incentive to move to better-paying metro areas like Dallas or Atlanta,” says the report by the nonpartisan organization, noting that Louisiana’s teacher retention rates fall well below the national average.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco is pushing lawmakers to approve a more than $156 million annual teacher pay raise in the budget for the new year that begins July 1 to get the state’s average teacher salary to the Southern average. The proposal has widespread support in the Legislature and is expected to pass before the legislative session ends in June.

Louisiana’s teacher salaries fall $2,469 below the Southern regional average, according to the latest state education estimates. The state’s average teacher pay for the 2006-07 year is $42,700. The Southern average is $45,169.

“To recruit and retain good teachers, we need competitive salaries. Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia n all of our neighbors are giving pay raises this year,” Blanco told lawmakers at the start of the legislative session this week.

Blanco also is seeking a $32.8 million pay raise for school support employees, like bus drivers and cafeteria workers, a $750 across-the-board pay hike. Some lawmakers want to double that.

Rather than across-the-board teacher raises, PAR recommends that the state dole out the dollars through the state’s funding formula for public education and that the school districts use the money on programs that pay teachers based on performance and that boost salaries for teaching in shortage areas.

The organization also recommends that school districts be able to determine how they dole out the school support worker pay raise money as well.

Blanco spokeswoman Marie Centanni said the governor won’t support changes away from an across-the-board proposal.