There appears to be a healthy wave of bipartisan support within the Legislature to boost the pay of public school teachers, and Missourians should do everything in their power to encourage lawmakers along this path. The state’s future depends on having well-educated kids who perform at grade level, head to college or technical school well grounded in the basics, and enter the workforce prepared for the demands their future employers put on them.
It all starts by attracting talented and highly motivated teachers whose salaries reflect the extraordinary demands placed upon them. For too long, the misguided mentality in Jefferson City, and probably among the general population, is that teachers somehow enjoy a cushy lifestyle in which they only work the few hours a day and then get the whole summer off.
Any teacher can quickly offer a reality check. The school day typically involves back-to-back classes that often don’t allow for bathroom breaks, much less time for lunch. There are student emotional crises, or helping a kid whose homelife requires counseling. If a student lacks supplies, the teacher often covers the expense out of her or his own wallet. There’s a barrage of self-assessment work, online training, administrative meetings and other demands that suck up any extra minutes of the day that aren’t occupied by classroom instruction.
Phoning parents, grading tests and written work from students, then entering student data into the school computer system, often are tasks that occur on the living room sofa or dining room table at home, long after the school day has ended — along with juggling the teacher’s own family demands.
And for all this, the starting pay in Missouri is a miserly $25,000 to $32,900 a year — among the lowest in the country. Given the actual hours they put in, Missouri teachers barely clear poverty-level wages, which is why the state is having such a hard time recruiting new teachers and retaining existing ones.
Republican Gov. Mike Parson argues that the starting salary should be closer to $38,000. And there’s a surprising surge of agreement among Republicans who dominate the Legislature. Yet some argue there are better uses for the state’s nearly $3 billion surplus. They need to listen to Republican lawmakers like state Sen. Elaine Gannon of DeSoto, a former teacher who recognizes that the current pay scale is not a survivable wage. “A lot of our teachers are out there hustling with second jobs on the weekends,” she says.
If Republican skeptics aren’t convinced, perhaps they should look at business surveys in which employers repeatedly complain about the lack of skills and preparation among Missouri high school graduates.
The state cannot hope to attract employers and grow the economy unless it can offer employers a well-prepared, educated workforce. It all starts with motivated, high-quality teachers attracted by salaries that convey the message: Missouri appreciates all that you do.
