THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 4, 1996 TAG: 9603010013
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
How quickly times change. Back when budgets for the biennium were being proposed, Governor Allen suggested a very modest effort at boosting pay for public schoolteachers - nothing this year and only 3 percent next year. Only two House Democrats initially objected enough to try amending Allen's plan. The Senate appeared ready to go along.
Republican legislators appear to have realized, however, that shortchanging education hasn't played well with voters. Some blame the failure of the GOP to capture the General Assembly on Allen's minimalist plans for both the state's public schools and for higher education.
Now a bidding war appears to be in progress and, unexpectedly, Democrats are having to play catch-up. Republicans are proposing to increase teacher pay 5 percent over two years. They'd get much of the extra money by reducing proposed House and Senate increases for college faculty that now range between 6 percent and 8 percent to the same 5 percent as the public schoolteachers would get.
Proposals on the table in the House and Senate are for less. The Senate was prepared to go along with Allen's 3 percent increase over two years. The House has passed the plan proposed by the Democratic majority for a 3.75 percent increase over the same period.
Teachers at both public school and postsecondary level deserve a boost. Under the most generous proposal, pay would do little more than keep pace with inflation. Pay has become a serious issue at state colleges and universities. Virginia is experiencing a brain drain as professors leave the state for greener academic pastures.
Public schoolteachers may be less mobile, but they have likewise been harmed by the state funding squeeze. In the 1980s, Govs. Jerry Baliles and Chuck Robb increased compensation for historically ill-paid Virginia teachers close to the national average. The straitened circumstances of the 1990s reversed the trend. The gains have been lost. Over the past five years, teacher pay has again slipped well below national norms - an average $3,300 below.
Increases for faculty and the teacher corps are warranted. The good news is, Democrats and Republicans now appear to agree on the need for, if not yet the size of, pay increases. We favor the upper end of the proposed range and also believe the Republican proposal to give college professors and public schoolteachers the same 5 percent increase has merit. Increases for both are overdue. by CNB