Nothing is more integral to good teaching than good teachers. Not class-size limits, not magnet schools, not SpringBoard curricula, not even cell-phone bans. Without the right person in front of a class, the wrong outcomes are guaranteed.
So, now it looks like Hillsborough County will have to do without as many as 150 highly experienced teachers next year because of budget scenarios. These veteran teachers are on one-year contracts after having been brought back from retirement. They are in the $60,000 range — at the top end of the pay scale.
The school district, which is in an onerous budget bind, has offered to rehire them at rookie pay ($37,000). But the teachers’ union had an issue with that. An out-of-state teacher with similar experience and degrees could come in and make as much as $25,000 more, it pointed out.
But the point is moot in a recessionary economy. Nobody’s going to be hired at the top of the scale. No matter how budgetary subplots play out in Tallahassee.
Let the experienced teachers, the ones you never have enough of, decide for themselves if being back in the classroom is worth being paid the starting pay rate – especially during turbulent economic times.
Then ask the students if it were worth it.