The Mississippi superintendent of education made a good point when he told a state Senate committee that it should address school choice legislation and teacher pay raises in separate proposals.
State Superintendent Dr. Lance Evans, along with a few district superintendents, spoke to the Senate Education Committee on Oct. 28. According to the Magnolia Tribune website, most of the officials had concerns about school choice and urged lawmakers to keep raising teacher pay.
While it’s true that both school choice and teacher pay are related to education, they are greatly different elements.
The first involves whether the state should allow families to send their kids to another school district than the one where it lives, and whether to extend choice to private schools willing to participate, with state money following children that move.
The second involves the ongoing effort to keep up with other Southern states where teacher pay continues to rise, as it has in Mississippi. Evans and other advocates of continued pay raises say the extra money is needed to recruit more teachers into a demanding profession in which too many new employees tend to stay for only a few years before leaving for other work.
Most likely, education leaders want the two issues split up in the Legislature so that one proposal doesn’t interfere with the other. For all the support that school choice has among the Republican majority, it is bound to have its opponents in successful districts that may not want to accept students from elsewhere. The Mississippi Association of Independent Schools has concerns. Debates over exactly what choices to allow could prevent a bill from passing in 2026
Another teacher pay raise, however, would not be nearly as controversial as school choice. There certainly would be questions over how much the state can afford, but at least two things point in favor of another increase.
For starters, Mississippi has greatly improved its reading scores compared to other states, so teachers can defend asking for higher pay. The state’s investments in reading coaches and phonics-based education have paid off.
Also, even though Mississippi’s average teacher pay is $54,000, it continues to trail all other Southern states. We’re not too far behind some: Florida’s is $55,000, Louisiana $56,000 and Arkansas and North Carolina are at $58,000. But Georgia, Virginia, South Carolina and Alabama all pay more than $60,000.
It is a fantasy to expect that Mississippi will one day reach the regional average, but if the state is going to continue its school improvements, it will need more and better teachers. The way to find them is through higher salaries.
Being honest about it all, in spite of the good advice from Evans and others, there’s a strong likelihood that a teacher pay raise, if the Legislature chooses to look at one next year, will be included in a bill with school choice.
For school choice advocates who may need to twist a few arms, it’s the strategic play. With a single bill, lawmakers who want to increase teacher pay but have concerns about how far school choice should go would have to decide which one is more important to them.
It’s easy to see some legislators who think a teacher pay raise is important choosing to support a bill that begins school choice in the state.
All this, of course, assumes the House and Senate can agree on the parameters of school choice. From what we have seen in the past, that is far from a guarantee. Such uncertainty should not get in the way of teacher salaries.
