Teachers’ Raise Sought *** Blanco Proposes $2,400 Increase, Targets Southern Average

By WILL SENTELL

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Friday she will ask lawmakers next month to approve a pay raise of about $2,400 per year for public schoolteachers, which she said would boost salaries to the regional average.

However, the president of one of Louisiana’s two largest teacher unions said the governor’s proposal is not enough to reach her target.

Teachers here made an average of about $3,200 less than others in the region during the 2005-06 school year, said Carol Davis, president of the Louisiana Association of Educators. The gap is likely larger now, Davis said, because other states have approved sizable pay raises since then.

Blanco’s pledge to boost pay to the regional average won a standing ovation from an estimated 700 high school principals, teachers and others.

“We will bring teachers to the Southern regional average,” she told the crowd.

Educators were gathered at a Baton Rouge hotel to discuss recommendations of a state panel named by the governor. It has recommended sweeping changes in public high schools starting with ninth-graders in fall 2008.

Blanco’s bid to boost teacher pay to the regional average failed during a special session in December. Her proposal then totaled $2,100 per teacher per year.

The governor’s latest plan will be presented to the 2007 Legislature, which begins April 30.

Steve Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, offered qualified praise and optimism for Blanco’s pay raise proposal if it moves salaries to the regional average.

“But we have to be careful that folks understand this is not the end of the journey,” he said of lawmakers. “It is just a step.”

Davis said the LAE favors $3,000-per-year raises for teachers and support workers as well as a system to keep increasing pay in future years.

Blanco’s proposal for teachers would cost the state about $170 million per year. The latest available average annual salary for public schoolteachers in Louisiana is $41,238 per year. Teachers won a $1,500 pay raise during the 2006 regular session.

The governor said her next budget proposal will also include $16 million to help implement recommendations of the Louisiana High School Redesign Commission, which has been working for two years. The changes are aimed at making high school more rigorous and relevant. About 190,000 attend the schools in Louisiana.

The recommendations include adding a fourth year of math for high school graduation, implementing a state-suggested curriculum starting with the ninth-grade class of 2008 and end-of-course tests starting with ninth graders in the class of 2009. The recommendations next face action by the state’s top school board.

Blanco said high school improvements are needed for the state to build a world-class education system. The push is especially relevant, she said, while she and others try to convince officials in Germany to build a $2.9 billion steel mill in St. James Parish.

Blanco, who returned from Germany on Thursday night, told the group she was grilled about educational opportunities in Louisiana.

“The work that you are doing is critical to our success,” she said.

Blanco and others also said high school changes, especially in the dropout-prone ninth grade, would trim the rate of students who quit school. Of 60,000 ninth-graders who began high school in August only about 35,000 will leave with a diploma in 2010, according to a state report done for the commission.

The governor also plans to ask the Legislature to boost spending on public school classes for pre-kindergarten students by $30 million, which would be a 53 percent increase over current spending.

(c) 2007 Advocate; Baton Rouge, La.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.