State Budget brief: Maintaining
quality staff in schools
Background
Placing high quality teachers and staff in schools is one of the most
important things we can do to improve student achievement.
To ensure a great school staff for years to come, an aggressive strategy
is needed to recruit and retain the best and brightest to the profession.
That strategy should include creating incentives and rewards for professional
growth and development combined with funding for mentoring programs
so beginning educators can learn from experienced teachers.
In order for the great teachers and staff members in Wisconsin’s
public schools to be fully effective, they must be part of the decision-making
in how the school is run. If Wisconsin is to recruit and retain the
best and the brightest educators, it must restore fairness to the state
bargaining law. That means repealing the outdated, inflexible Qualified
Economic Offer (QEO) law.
Investments to maintain quality staff in schools contained in 2005-2007
budget
The governor’s budget proposal for 2005-2007 will maintain
quality staff in schools by:
- Providing funding for competitive grants to school districts where
school boards and educators are interested in designing compensation
systems that reward teachers for acquiring skills and knowledge that
have been demonstrated to improve student learning or for accepting
hard-to-staff or challenging teacher assignments.
- Expanding the grant program for teachers who receive certification
from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to include
teachers who receive master teacher licenses under the state’s
new licensure rules.
- Providing $2.6 million to help experienced teacher mentors for
beginning educators.
- Repealing the QEO to provide more flexibility for teachers and
school boards to work together to find better ways to link teacher
compensation with implementing effective instructional strategies,
to address escalating health insurance costs and to create equity
between teachers and other public employees in bargaining.
WEAC position
The Wisconsin Education Association Council supports investments in
the governor’s 2005-2007 budget bill to recruit and retain quality
staff in schools by creating incentives and rewards for professional
development, establishing teacher mentoring programs, and repealing
the unfair Qualified Economic Offer.
Talking points
- Providing school districts with critical resources to reward teachers
for pursuing professional development opportunities will improve student
learning.
- It is a well-established principle in education circles that mentoring
works; however, with the revenue caps, schools do not have the funding
or the flexibility to implement effective monitoring programs. The
governor’s budget provides needed funds to establish these critical
programs.
- The governor’s budget builds on the exciting new teacher
licensure process established in a new administrative rule known as
PI 34 by allowing master level teachers to qualify for grants currently
available to those who receive certification from the National Board
for Professional Teaching Standards.
- Repealing the QEO will help Wisconsin attract and retain the best
and the brightest in the education profession.
- Wisconsin teachers are the most qualified in the country but
rank 23rd in pay, a drop from 15th in 1993 when the QEO law was
imposed.
- Since the QEO law went into effect, teacher compensation has
lost ground to inflation, making it even more difficult to attract
and retain the best and the brightest.
- Repealing the QEO restores fairness and true collective bargaining
at the local level.
Additional information
If you have comments or questions, please contact Deb Sybell, WEAC Legislative
Program Coordinator, at sybelld@weac.org
or by phone at 800-362-8034 ext. 227.
Resource page on the 2005-07 state budget
Posted April 20, 2005
