Reduce the bureaucracy
in education the solution
West Virginia needs to pay more attention to the the National Education Association (NEA) — a teachers’ union. It appears to have the most accurate, readily available, statistics on education that graphically reveal the solution to low teacher pay.
The NEA points out in 2017, before teacher raises, our state’s K-12 spending was No. 13 in the nation per pupil at $14,274 per year, yet we are No. 49 in the nation at $45,555 average teacher salary. The 2018 figures should be out this month, and by including that 5 percent pay raise teachers already received, might boost West Virginia into the top 10 nationally of spending per pupil.
In states where the spending per pupil is as high as ours, they pay teachers much more, $20,000 per year more. Per pupil spending vs. teachers’ average salaries in Illinois are $13,875 vs. $64,939; in Maryland, $14,774 vs. $68,357; in Pennsylvania, $15,017 vs. $66,265; and in Rhode Island, $15,491 vs. $66,477.
The problem is NOT funding. The problem is the state’s education bureaucracy. All other states do it. Increase the teachers’ salaries and reduce the duplication, fraud and waste in the state’s education bureaucracy. That is what the NEA and the teachers should be screaming about. Not the Republican legislators.
That education bureaucracy set up by decades of Democratic control must be changed.
Reduce the size and cost of the bureaucracy. As expenses drop, increase teacher salaries by an equal amount until an additional $20,000 per teacher is reached.
Overall there are 19,148 teachers statewide in K-12. To increase their average salaries by $20,000 per teacher means there needs to be about a $383 million reduction in the $4 billion-plus spent on K-12 education in West Virginia. Set aside about $900 million paid to the teachers and that $383 million is about 12 percent of the education bureaucracy’s duplication, fraud and waste to give the teachers the raise they deserve.
Stephen McElroy
Bridgeport
Positive things, people to
vote for in Morgantown
I am writing this letter to the editor with two things in mind, both of which are positive for Morgantown.
First, I hope you have noticed the banners on High Street that normally encourage you to shop or dine in downtown Morgantown have, for the last three weeks, brought a different message that invites you to consider people around you. These were part of the Designing Across Divides: Co-creating Tools for Community Change conference, an event that invited people from every walk of life to show up together, hear from speakers across the country and participate in workshops of the same mind as the banners to get beyond our divides and start some positive action.
The banners were designed by local, state, national and international winners from a call that asked what we need to do to come together and respectfully dialogue.
I co-organized that conference, and the second, amazing thing for me, was to see the City Council, Main Street Morgantown, five colleges at WVU and many organizations that serve our community partner with me in this effort to live into the Welcoming Resolution passed in 2017. Further, Mayor Bill Kawecki and councilors Jenny Selin, Ron Dulaney, Barry Wendell and Rachel Fetty actively participated in the conference, and in its planning that included a community dinner open to all. It’s the most caring and active council I have lived with in my 40 years in this city.
Morgantown, like anywhere we might live, has work to do to live up to its own goals and to be a leader in West Virginia in ways that consciously treat people with fairness and our environment with practices that might sustain it for future generations, but with our current City Council I see motivation, cooperation, listening and action being taken that encourages me to be part of that stepping forward together. I hope you will join me in that momentum by taking yourself to the voting booth by April 30.
Eve Faulkes
Morgantown
