Panel brainstorming benefits to keep teachers in classroom

Would $10,000 more a year make people want to become teachers?

Maybe $15,000?

Or, how about a $47,000-a-year starting salary for fresh college grads?

Legislators want to know.

Thursday, a subcommittee of the Education Interim Committee met for the first time to find ways to stem Utah's teacher shortage, keep the teachers it's got now, and entice more to take up the career. The Subcommittee on Teacher Shortages, Quality and Compensation will make recommendations to the Interim Committee in November.

"We really want to see good things happen in this area," Amber Sundown-Schwartz, director of teaching and learning for the Utah Education Association, told the subcommittee. "We hope that whatever we do in Utah is ... comprehensive, that we stop looking at Band-Aid solutions and look at long-term solutions." A national teacher shortage is hitting Utah school districts hard. A number of Wasatch Front districts had unfilled positions when school started this fall. Particularly hard to find are special education, math and science teachers, despite an eight-year state incentive program offering bonuses to fresh college graduates taking those jobs.

The main problem: Utah's enrollments are jumping. Teaching colleges aren't producing enough teachers, and new teachers are going to other states where the pay is higher, or, in the case of half of them, leaving the profession within the first five years.

The Legislature earlier this year approved a $2,500 raise and $1,000 bonus for all teachers. Now, lawmakers are looking at other ways to address the matter.

Extra pay for performance or hard-to-staff positions is a prime issue.

In Denver public schools, for instance, teachers get raises worth a few hundred bucks to a few thousand bucks for completing professional development or a graduate degree, for satisfactory evaluations every three years, or meeting student growth or performance objectives, according to legislative research presented to the committee.

Research groups say comprehensive compensation packages ought to contain on-the-job professional development, evaluations based on professional standards and career advancement options, according to legislative research. All teachers, not just those in core academic subjects, also should be able to access pay incentives.