Teacher Pay

Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds both have pledged to lift teacher salaries in Virginia to the national average. We agree with The Washington Post. "There are more effective ways to improve teacher quality," a Post editorial explains after describing the pay proposal as a "wrong goal."

For one thing, salaries vary throughout the state -- and should. The cost of living in Northern Virginia far exceeds the cost of living in the commonwealth's rural areas. Teachers in Fairfax need more money to make ends meet. Moreover, states seldom compete among themselves for teachers in K-12 education. Competition is more likely to occur among districts within states, as wealthier jurisdictions lure teachers from adjacent or nearby systems that might not be able to pay as much.

Teachers generally are underpaid; "low salaries discourage people from entering, and staying, in teaching," as The Post says. But across-the-board increases to meet "an artificial goal" truly qualify as a "discredited relic." Better pay does not necessarily translate into better student performance. Teachers in the District of Columbia earn more than their counterparts across the Potomac yet do not produce stronger results -- even when the stresses of an urban system are taken into account. The Post recommends "breaking the chokehold of seniority and tenure so that bad teachers can be weeded out." (By the way, The Post's enlightened editorial approach to education might surprise ideological cranks who dismiss the paper as, in Ollie North's words, The Compost.)

The Post expresses admiration for McDonnell's support of charter schools, and offers that Deeds has "interesting ideas" on encouraging people to become teachers. Although both candidates have spoken of performance pay, The Post commends McDonnell for being the more convincing of the two. Neither has "fully developed proposals that he is really pushing," however.

That pretty much sums up the situations in most elections. We cannot remember a time when candidates did not promise to boost teacher pay and to raise standards and to enforce accountability and so on, blah, blah, blah. And how is Virginia to pay for this -- especially as it enhances transportation, heals health care, promotes business relocation, makes sure the bad guys stay behind bars, and copes with a recession? Ah, there's the rub.