An hours-long hearing by the Pa. House Education Committee featured some lively exchanges over how much pay teachers unions demand.
The Pennsylvania House Education Committee held its first hearing of the year Wednesday focused on the causes and solutions to the state's teacher shortage. April 12, 2023 Screenshot from Pa. House websiteWith Pennsylvania colleges producing fewer teachers than ever before, a state House panel spent several hours on Wednesday discussing how to change that trend.
But it was the suggestion that teacher salaries needed to be higher that triggered some interesting exchanges. He cited a National Center for Educational Statistics wage survey that factors in a state’s cost of living that ranked Pennsylvania as having the fourth highest teacher wages in the nation behind only New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
While the cost of getting a college degree goes up, the Penn State study found the average teacher’s salary has declined from $72,290 in 1999-2000 to $68,141 in 2018-19. “Besides the physical condition of buildings, it is the culture wars going on in these local districts where they are being berated for what they’re doing in schools,” Steinberg said. “You’re more likely to put up with less than optimal conditions if you have a very competitive and livable wage. The lower salary makes you more likely to look for something else.”
“Sometimes it’s fair and sometimes it’s not,” she said. “If you read Yahoo news you see all these teachers who have done all kinds of bad things sexual predator type things in schools and they don’t fired. They’re shifted around.” On that note, committee Chairman Peter Schweyer, D-Lehigh County, interrupted Mackenzie and told her to stay on the hearing’s topic.
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