Big Drop in Raises: The QEO is Even Worse Than it Appears
- By Mike Langyel
Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association
In your last edition of News & Views, your series of articles
on the Qualified Economic Offer did not fully describe how our salaries
are affected.
Teacher Salary Increases 3 years prior to QEO:
5.06% 3 years since the QEO:
1.70% |
In several places, you indicated that salary increases would be held
to 2.1% by the QEO. The actual situation is much worse than that.
For example, the actual increases to our salary schedules have averaged
around one-half of one percent each year!
We need to point out that it is only through voodoo economics that
we can essentially have our salary schedules frozen and then let the
school boards claim that we received raises of 2.1%.
According to the WEAC Research Division, the statewide average teacher
salary increase (based on the average of the six common benchmarks)
was 5.06% for the three years prior to implementation of the QEO law
in 1993.
Since the law took effect, the average has been 1.7%.
Another way to illustrate the devastating effects of the QEO is to
show what happens to the real purchasing power of a newly hired teacher
over a 30-year career.
For example, if we assume that the average annual rate of inflation
over the next 30 years is 4% and the average annual salary schedule
increases under the QEO is 1.7%, each teacher would lose 2.3% in purchasing
power per year.
If we assume that this hypothetical teacher moves to the top of the
salary schedule, after 30 years the teacher will have a salary that
amounts to half the purchasing power he or she has today.
It’s time we got the word out about the threat that the QEO poses
to teaching as a profession and to the future of quality public education
for all children.
Posted March 4, 1997