
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 12, 1995                   TAG: 9503100047
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TEACHERS' PAY ISN'T EVERYTHING

A LITTLE something may have gotten lost in last week's miniflap over pay scales for Roanoke Valley schoolteachers. Missing: attention to the reason for having schools at all - which, the last time we looked, was not to keep teachers happy but to educate children.

Of course, happy teachers and well-schooled children aren't mutually exclusive. On the contary; they go together. Even so, confusion over purpose helps explain how both Roanoke Mayor David Bowers and Roanoke County Supervisor Bob Johnson, who may well be mutually exclusive, have missed the point by a couple of country miles.

Bowers proposed that the city and county set a uniform teacher-pay scale, so the two jurisdictions won't be chasing each other's teacher-salary tail. Then, we suppose, they can chase Salem's, where wise attention is being paid to the national average for teacher salaries.

Bowers' proposal is not ridiculous. The labor market for teachers is, to a degree, as regional as the local economy is. But his idea, besides possibly having an iceberg's chance on the equator, picks the wrong target. The city should be able to find something more meaningful than the county's scale as the basis for its own salary structure.

Johnson, a former employee of the Virginia Education Association, says Bowers' proposal would "artificially hold down teachers' salaries." That's not a ridiculous assertion, either. Local governments wouldn't want to come across like baseball-club owners.

But Johnson's retort is beside the point, too. The mayor's idea is not noticeably more "artificial" than the current practice of playing off one pay scale against another to raise teacher salaries.

When Bowers proposes regional "cooperation," he manages to do so in ways that seem like put-downs of the county. When Johnson discusses educational policy, he manages to do so in ways that seem like he's still negotiating higher teacher salaries.

The county School Board, says Chairman Frank Thomas, wants "to do what we think is right for the teachers." That shouldn't be the pay-scale guide, either.

Personnel policies in the public schools should be geared to maintaining and improving the quality of the education that's being offered. Pay scales high enough to recruit and retain excellent teachers are part of it. So are increased roles for teachers in managing education and reforming schools, and increased accountability via techniques such as merit pay, competency tests and limits on tenure. We generally favor higher teacher salaries. But parents and taxpayers reasonably should weigh output, in educational results, against inputs measured in dollars.

And the competition, in any case, is not between Roanoke city and Roanoke County, or between the two Roanokes and Salem. The challenge is to attract bright young people into teaching as opposed to other professions, and then for teachers to help produce citizens and workers who can make their way in a world in which the advantage of a strong education grows more crucial by the day.

by CNB