Good for the Mississippi Legislature. Whatever their disagreements about tax cuts and other issues, the House and the Senate did right by the state’s public school teachers, coming through with a huge pay raise.
The House voted 118-4 to pass a revised version of the bill, which this fall will deliver an average pay increase of $5,100 and raise the pay for a first-year teacher to $41,500. Last week, the Senate approved the bill without a single dissenting vote.
Gov. Tate Reeves, who had proposed a $3,300 raise for teachers and surprisingly was outdone by the legislative branch, said he looks forward to reviewing the bill. He added that he intends to keep his promise to ensure that teachers “get the pay raise which they have earned and deserve.”
The Legislature has allocated an impressive $246 million for the pay raises. The boost for first-year teachers puts their pay above both the Southeastern and national averages — an exceptionally rare accomplishment for a state with a record of one of the lowest teacher salary scales in the country.
The topic of teacher pay often gets kicked around. Critics correctly note that the salaries are for only about nine months of work, though that tends to overlook the extra hours that many teachers put into their job at night or on the weekends. And the poor state grades for too many schools and school districts make it easy to ask whether all teachers deserve the same-sized pay raise.
But other numbers tell a compelling story. The Mississippi Department of Education says public schools have 3,000 certified teacher vacancies. While teaching already is a calling that too few people embrace, it’s not hard to figure out that one thing that turns potential educators away from the classroom is the relatively low pay for a very demanding job.
Mississippi lawmakers, to their credit, kept their eyes on the big picture. Which is: The state needs more good teachers, and the best way to help schools find them is to start them at a good salary and figure out how to reward them financially if they stick with the job and help students progress academically.
Aside from the pay raise, which is more than a 10% jump for many teachers, the bill also includes a new scale that raises an individual’s pay by $400 to $600 per year as their length of service increases. It also provides larger pay raises of $1,200 or more every five years.
Assuming Reeves signs the bill, the average teacher’s pay is certain to rise above $50,000 a year. In the 2019-20 school year, that figure was $46,843 — $8,000 less than the average pay in 16 southeastern states, and $17,000 below the national average.
Mississippi could not be expected to make up those differences all at once. But the Legislature clearly recognized the pay disparity and has done something about it.
The bill is an acknowledgement by state leaders that, in a competitive environment for professionals, they needed to do a better job of encouraging people to consider the education profession. The Legislature has done just that.
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
