The move by the Philadelphia School Reform Commission—an instrument of state control over the city’s schools, with a majority of board members appointed by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett—to cut health care for teachers and suspend their contract could further hurt the city’s desperately underfunded, suffering schools, Daniel Denvir writes. Philadelphia teachers were paid 19 percent less than teachers in neighboring suburbs even before the Philadelphia teachers were hit with a pay freeze, but at least their health care was paid for. Now it’s not.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a 2012 study by Stanford University’s Center for Education Policy Analysis found “that a differential salary increase can improve a school district’s attractiveness within the local teacher labor market and increase both the size and quality of the teacher applicant pool.”
Ken Futernick, a reform critic and professor emeritus of education at California State University, Sacramento, predicts the move to “save money will generate huge costs of its own. A cut in teachers’ benefits and an escalation of dysfunction in the district will lead to increased teacher attrition. The cost to recruit and train replacements, if qualified ones can be found, range from $20,000 to $30,000 per teacher. But that does not account for the time principals must take to screen, interview and train candidates when they could be supporting classroom instruction. Perhaps the greatest cost of increased teacher churn is the harm it will do to student learning.”
Low pay, tough working conditions, ballooning class size, and the thousands of dollars teachers spend on school supplies each year contribute to high teacher turnover in Philadelphia schools, and high teacher turnover isn’t good for student learning. And Corbett’s education funding cuts have made the situation incalculably worse, with thousands fewer teachers and school staff now than when Corbett took office.
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Continue reading below the fold for more of the week’s education and labor news.
