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Teachers' salaries
According to the Virginia Education Association (VEA), the Richmond-based teachers' group, after successive years of increasing salaries across the state — designed to bring Virginia to the national average — two years of only modest ■ raises have sunk the state lower when compared to the other ». 49 states. ! The VEA said last week that by 1989 Virginia was within *$373 of the national average. But the group’s research indicates that next year the state’s average teacher will make I $32,382 while nationally the average will be $34,336 —widening the gap back to about $2,000 after a decade of steady ’ progress.
Still, we’ve come a long way from 1980, when the state’s ■ teachers averaged only $18,535 (compared to $20,725 nationally). Over a six-year period in the mid-1980s, teachers in Virginia saw their paychecks jump by 8.1 percent, 8.6 percent, ;8.4 percent, 8.6 percent, 6.5 percent and 6.9 percent. It’s not ; an unfair question to ask how much further we need to go.
The VEA is concerned that most state public school teach• ers will not get raises next year, adding to the already growing ; gap between Virginia and the national average. In fact, 1 according to VEA figures, the escalating cost of health insur' ance could mean that the state’s educators take home less pay ; next year. » VEA president Madeline Wade, in announcing the results «of next year’s forecast, said that Virginia’s rank of 11th among c states in personal income ought to justify paying teachers at ' least the national average.
“The VEA believes that achieving this salary goal will re* quire the restoration of salary requirement language and incentive payments in the next biennial budget. This is the most T appropriate way to ensure that funds appropriated by the l General Assembly for teacher salary improvement are used 'for that purpose,” said Ms. Wade. - Although the issue of equitable pay for teachers is of paramount importance, we have seen the results of Richmond’s educational mandates during the past three administrations. We can’t support the VE A’s linkage of teacher pay with stqte funds because the last decade has made it clear that the state’s various public school systems often have more differences than similarities. Mandating the same educational principles for ; Fairfax and Wythe would ignore those differences. ; Paying teachers the national average is a good idea, - statewide. Mandating it county-by-county would further strain the already stretched local budgets.
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