Joe Rogalsky, The Examiner
2007-12-13 08:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

WASHINGTON -

Teachers in Virginia earn far less than their counterparts in Maryland and the District of Columbia, according to a study released Wednesday.

The average Virginia teacher earned $44,727 in the 2006-07 school year, the National Education Association reported, which is 31st in the country and about $6,000 below the national average. The teachers union found the average salaries in Maryland and the District were $56,927 and $59,000, respectively.

“The numbers don’t lie,” said Princess Moss, president of the Virginia Education Association.

Last year, Virginia ranked 28th in the country with an average salary of $43,823. The operating budget lawmakers approved in April included money to give teachers a 3 percent pay raise, but Moss said future increases must be higher for Virginia to keep pace with other states.

Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, R-Fairfax, disagreed with Moss. Rather than give wholesale raises to all teachers, he said, the state should implement a system to reward top-notch instructors.

He also wants to see Virginia allow parents complete control over which schools their students attend and would provide vouchers to help families send their children to private school. Competing with private schools, he said, would improve instruction in public schools.

“We need to start making our system better, not merely lobbing money bombs into the union trough, institute real merit pay using normalized student performance improvement as the measure of teachers’ success, and we need to introduce beneficial competition into our system,” Cuccinelli said.

The NEA survey measured only the size of teachers’ paychecks and did not take into account benefits or other compensation. The Virginia Department of Education, which includes non-salary compensation, calculated that teachers in the state earned an average of $50,000 in the 2006-07 school year.

Nationally, California teachers earned $63,640, which is the highest average in the country. South Dakota’s $35,378 average was the lowest.

jrogalsky@dcexaminer.com