New Teacher Pay Scale Gets an ‘A’

The higher starting salary for beginning teachers, agreed to by the Los Angeles Unified School District and United Teachers-Los Angeles, will reward better-prepared teachers and make the district more competitive with surrounding school systems at a time of a statewide teacher shortage.

First-year teachers who are fully credentialed will get $37,000 per year. The new rate, the highest starting salary in the county, should help the district attract more teachers who have completed their certification. Of the 4,400 teachers hired for the current school year, only 1,200 were fully certified. The remainder held emergency credentials. All received the same starting pay of $32,569.

While some emergency teachers are effective, especially with older students, many end up in the primary grades before they have learned how to teach reading.

The state will pick up nearly 60% of the $9.7-million cost thanks to AB 1117, sponsored last year by Assemblyman Thomas Calderon (D-Montebello). The new law increases state funding to raise the pay of all fully certified teachers.

A better starting salary for all teachers, however, doesn’t mean that salaries should automatically increase regardless of how well or poorly a teacher does the job. UTLA unfortunately will fight performance-based salaries during negotiations on the new contract.

But here’s one negotiating point on which most can agree: Higher starting salaries help attract better candidates. This increase, however modest, is worth a cheer. The next step should be negotiations that lead to the very best teachers making salaries that actually compete with the private sector.