Kamala Harris: Colorado teachers' pay is unacceptably low, here's how I'll fix it

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By Kamala Harris | Guest Commentary
August 30, 2019

____As our children head back to school to start a new year, they will be greeted by the women and men who will guide them, teach them, and help shape them into the people they will become — their teachers.

At the most fundamental level, our children are being raised by two groups of people: families and teachers. Yet the truth is that we fail to pay teachers their value. The average salary for teachers in Colorado ranks 46th out of 50 in the country, and across the country, public school teachers earn over 11% less than similar professionals. Teachers are more likely than non-teachers to work a second job, and the average teacher makes $1,000 less than 30 years ago.

Colorado families are acutely aware of our national teacher crisis. The majority of school districts in Colorado have gone to four day school weeks to save money. Others are coping with overcrowded classrooms and high turnover. Rural Colorado, in particular, has been hit hard — in some areas, teachers are paid 36% below the cost of living. This is having a profound impact on our children, our schools and our communities. That’s exactly why thousands of Denver teachers went on strike to demand better pay.

The status quo is unacceptable and we must do better. So many of us have had that one teacher who made a profound impact on our lives, who looked at us and convinced us we were special. Maybe we weren’t particularly special, but they convinced us we were and we believed them. For me, that was my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Francis Wilson. She helped spark my love for learning and became a lifelong mentor and friend. She was even in the audience when I graduated from law school graduation so many years after I left her classroom.

When I announced my first major policy proposal of this campaign — to give every public school teacher in America a raise — I thought of Mrs. Wilson and the countless other teachers like her across our country.

The teacher “pay gap” has truly harmful consequences for our children and our economy. Teachers are leaving their dream jobs because they can’t make ends meet. Bright college graduates are not choosing this path of service because they need to pay their student loans. Rural schools are unable to fill teaching vacancies while urban schools struggle with high rates of turnover.

We must not let our students fall behind the rest of the world. And we must close the education achievement divide in Colorado for Latinx children and communities of color..

The teacher pay gap is a national failure that deserves a bold national response. Under my plan, we’ll close the teacher “pay gap” giving the average Colorado teacher a $17,700 raise.

Here’s how it will work:

We’ll provide a base level of funding to Colorado and every state in the country, and then incentivize states do their part to take full advantage of our plan. We will immediately make a federal investment in every state to provide the first 10 percent of funding needed to close the teacher pay gap. Then we will support states to do their part: For every $1 a state contributes to increasing teacher pay, the federal government will invest $3, until we fully close the teacher pay gap

Nearly half of Colorado’s pre K-12 students are Black or Latinx, and supporting them by recruiting, attracting, and retaining teachers with better pay – especially teachers of color – is critical. We’ll support programs dedicated to diverse teacher recruitment, training, and professional development. And we’ll support the right of public educators to join and engage with their union, and bring the fight for student needs and better pay to cities and state capitals across America.

We will pay for this plan by increasing the estate tax for the top 1 percent of taxpayers and cracking down on loopholes that let the very wealthiest, with estates worth multiple millions or billions of dollars, avoid paying their fair share. By making the tax code a bit more fair, we can raise the standards for everyone and invest in what should be a national priority – education.

Investing in our teachers, and our children is central to building an economy that works for working people and ensuring that the United States remains competitive on the world stage. Research shows that attracting and retaining more great teachers would improve student performance, increase graduation rates and lead to higher future earnings for our kids.

When I’m president, we will finally start treating our teachers here in Colorado and across the country with the respect and dignity they deserve.

https://www.denverpost.com/2019/08/30/kamala-harris-colorado-teachers-pay-is-unacceptably-low-heres-how-ill-fix-it