Idahoans for Excellence in Education

Expanding Educational Choice for Idaho Families

By HOLLAND JOHNSON

After listening to the TV adds telling us teacher salary funding in Idaho is bad, I asked myself, how bad is it? I found two web sites, one by the National Education Association , www.nea.org and one by the National Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, www.aft.org, with actual studies and comparisons.

At the NEA site I learned that Idaho ranks 29th among the 50 states in teacher salaries. That is not fantastic, but it's also not exactly the back of the class, like the TV add says it is. Don't get me wrong; I think good teachers are prICE-PACless. So how much more can Idaho do?

According to the NEA, Idaho is second, yes second, only to Georgia in increasing teacher salaries over the last decade from 1993-94 to 2003-04. Incidentally, that is the same decade when 25 years of control of the Governors offICE-PAC by one party ended and and a decade of control by the other began. At the beginning, Idaho teacher salaries were 41st in the nation. A decade later 29th.

Idaho is fifth among states in the ratio of our teachers incomes compared to the rest of us, and second in the trend to increase teacher salaries proportionate to the rest of ours. (AFT study) Among the Intermountain States, Idaho's teacher salaries are second only to Colorado's.

In personal income tax, Idaho is the 14th highest state, and 16th highest sales tax. (NEA) Now the proponents of Proposition 1 want to raise sales another 17%, Its only a penny? Duh!

Aesop taught us the lesson of the golden eggs and the goose. High taxes choke the economy that feeds the ability to raise teacher salaries. If Idaho was the land of unlimited wealth, our best school teachers should each make a least a million dollars a year. For now, Idaho leads the nation, second only to Georgia in improving teacher salaries. And we have improved from 41st to 29th. Let's do something real for our Idaho teachers and not strangle the Goose!

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Boise, ID 83701