KOMU has a story about Columbia Public Schools’ deficit of science and math teachers, and a senate bill that would provide a stipend for math and science teachers, hopefully becoming an incentive for choose teaching over some more lucrative fields for graduates in math and science.
Senate Bill 827 allows a metropolitan school district to offer an increased starting salary for teachers of math, science, special education, and English as a second language in order to attract and retain qualified teachers. The amount of the salary increase shall be between $3,000 and $5,000, as determined by the school district. This act creates the Metropolitan School District Improvement Fund in the state treasury.
Finding and retaining new teachers is getting harder all the time, especially because teaching salaries cannot often keep up with similar fields. Math curriculums have gotten a lot of attention in Columbia lately as the district studies new practices to improve math education. It seems that innovations in math and science will benefit from a healthy influx of new teachers. So why would the MNEA oppose more money for teachers? According to the article, they oppose the stipend because it would keep pay static even between subjects.
Now, I can’t imagine many math and science teachers who, upon beginning a teaching career, suddenly decide they want to be English teachers, and fewer yet who are qualified. I also can’t imagine that a teacher who wants to continue teaching should be denied a stipend that helps supplement low salaries that young teachers often receive, simply because they change subjects. I wonder what exactly the MNEA has against in-demand teachers making more money…
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