Did the Virginian-Pilot strike out? Big-time!
An editorial in yesterday’s Virginian-Pilot concerned teacher pay and how best to compare the pay of Virginia’s public school teachers. According to the editorial, “the option preferred by the Virginia House of Delegates . . . called for the state to start measuring itself against 16 member-states in the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), rather than the nation, when it comes to teacher pay.” The editorial concluded: “Members of the ruling clique in the House of Delegates may prefer to think of Virginia as part of a southern tradition. But most Virginians probably realize the Old Dominion became wedded to a higher standard along about 1865.”
The problem, though, is the House of Delegates did not make the change attributed to it by the Virginian-Pilot. Rather, the change was made by the Senate’s Finance Committee. The bill, SB 324, prefiled by Arlington’s state Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple, reads as if written by the Virginia teachers union, the Virginia Education Association. According to the “summary as introduced” the bill, “(e)establishes, as a goal of the Commonwealth, that the average salary for Virginia public school teachers equal or surpass the national average salary for public school teachers.” It passed the Senate’s Education and Health Committee 14-0.
SB 324 then went to Senate Finance, which voted 15-0 “with substitute.” The “amendment in the nature of a substitute” among other things, changed the bill’s goal to measuring “the Commonwealth’s compensation for teachers relative to member states in the” SREB. That language doesn’t change in the “summary as passed” both houses.
I know the liberal Virginian-Pilot tries to never miss an opportunity to slam the low tax, limited government, members in the House of Delegates, but this time they got it wrong. Big time! Seems even Senator “Likes to Raise My Taxes” Chichester, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, can’t stomach legislation written principally to appease the teachers union. The Virginian-Pilot actually got it wrong twice. Teacher pay should be determined like pay in the private sector, i.e., by market forces.