Friday, November 11, 2005

Exposed: KY Teachers 5th Highest Paid In Nation

State legislators buckled last year under agonizing pleas from the teachers' union that its members could not afford to feed their families if they were forced to absorb higher health care costs. Kentucky's education "reformers" have claimed for years that education nirvana could be found on the other side of higher pay for teachers.

We have been duped.

A study from the Raleigh, North Carolina-based John Locke Foundation has ranked the total compensation for public school teachers by state. Kentucky has long been listed at the bottom of educational achievement surveys and it is ranked 34th in terms of teacher salary. But when total compensation and cost-of-living are considered, Kentucky is ranked number five in the nation.

Here is the report.

The folks at the Bluegrass Institute told me about this one. They work on some very interesting things to improve education in Kentucky and are finding surprisingly little support from "conservative" and "family-friendly" legislators of both parties. Their plan is to take their information directly to parents. God help the politicians who stand in the way of this train when it gets moving.