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Kentucky teachers among nation’s highest paid

By Jim Waters

If high teachers’ salaries determine student achievement, Kentucky schools would be among the best in the nation.

No Kentuckian in his right mind wants a teacher – especially one who excels in the classroom – to be underpaid. Next to parents, an effective teacher can have the greatest impact on a child’s future.

That legislators already recognize this potential impact on young lives is evident in the fact that Kentucky teachers’ compensation – when adjusted for the cost of living in our state, pension matches and average years of experience – is among the best in the nation.

This, of course, does not jive with comparisons offered by national teachers’ unions, the Kentucky Education Association (KEA) and their lobbyists in Frankfort.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) reports that Kentucky ranks 34th out of 50 states in salaries paid to teachers during the 2003-04 school year. It claims Kentucky teachers earn an average of $39,381, significantly less than the national average of $47,750¹.

But the AFT’s claim is neither complete nor accurate as it conveniently fails to consider cost-of-living factors in its rankings that can vary widely from state to state.

Except for Illinois and Ohio, teachers living in Kentucky’s border states command lower adjusted salary levels because they pay more for housing, transportation and utilities than teachers in Kentucky. For example, the most recent U.S. Census information shows that the median value of a Cincinnati home in 2000 was $93,000, while the median value of a home in Covington was only $71,900². Kentucky teachers moving across the Ohio River may find its grass is not as green as it appears.

Another reason Kentucky’s adjusted teachers’ salaries rank higher than every other state in the south – with the exception of Georgia – is its relatively high level of employer pension contributions.

Only three states contribute more than Kentucky’s 14.8 percent pension match for teachers. In fact, Kentucky’s match is nearly twice the national average of 8.2 percent.

After funding excessive increases in health-care benefits for all state employees last year, Kentucky’s lawmakers should be careful not to fall for the teachers’ unions’ old trick of comparing apples to oranges for the specific benefit of its members. Instead of across-the-board raises, legislators should design a pay-for-performance compensation system that rewards effective teachers and furloughs the ineffective ones.

– Jim Waters is director of policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s free-market think tank.

Sources:

1. “Learning about teacher pay” by Terry Stoops, John Locke Foundation, at http://www.johnlocke.org/acrobat/spotlights/spotlight269-teacherpay.pdf. (The report looks at cost-of-living factors, pension matches and years of experience. Health-care benefits are not included as state-by-state information is not available.)

2. “City-Data.com” at http://www.city-data.com.

The Bluegrass Institute is an independent research and educational institution offering free-market solutions to Kentucky's most pressing problems.

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