Teacher pay study touts Arkansas improvements

by Talk Business & Politics staff (staff2@talkbusiness.net)

A study conducted by The New Teacher Project says Arkansas has the highest teacher pay in the country, when you figure in cost-of-living factors, but the report is hesitant to draw further conclusions about the improvement of teacher recruiting and retention until more data is available on recent initiatives.

Released last week, the TNTP report titled “Moving Up: Promising Strategies to Address Teacher Shortages in Arkansas” is a follow up to a 2021 report titled “Missing Out,” which outlined some ways the state could fix its looming teacher shortage. Some of those recommendations were included in Gov. Sarah Sanders’ LEARNS Act.

The signature education bill raised minimum teacher salaries in Arkansas to $50,000 and provided one-time $2,000 raises to teachers earning more than $50,000.

Teacher pay study touts Arkansas improvements

Questions continue over Arkansas teacher pay

KUAR | By Josie Lenora

When Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders talks about the Arkansas LEARNS Act, she almost always mentions teacher pay.

“It starts by immediately offering incentives to attract and retain the best brightest teachers to Arkansas,” she said when she first introduced the bill. “Instead of being in 48th in the nation for starting teacher salary, we will now be in the top five.”

Under the law, new teachers will get $50,000 a year, a far higher base salary than even a year ago, when, according to the National Education Association, Arkansas offered on average $37,000 to first-year teachers.

https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/local-regional-news/2023-07-12/questions-continue-over-arkansas-teacher-pay

Lindsey Balbierz For NPR

As the LEARNS bill rolls out, teachers and districts experience confusion about how teacher pay provisions in the law will pan out.

Senate sends LEARNS Act to governor, bill signing planned for Wednesday

by Steve Brawner (BRAWNERSTEVE@MAC.COM)

The Arkansas Senate passed Gov. Sarah Sanders’ LEARNS Act Tuesday (March 7), paving the way for her to sign the bill in a Capitol Rotunda ceremony at noon on Wednesday.

Following passage of the bill, Sanders’ office released a statement.

“Today’s final passage of the biggest, boldest, most conservative education reforms in America makes Arkansas a blueprint for the country. Arkansas LEARNS will raise teacher pay, empower parents, and give our students the skills to succeed in life. These changes can’t come soon enough,” she said.

https://talkbusiness.net/2023/03/senate-sends-learns-act-to-governor-bill-signing-planned-for-wednesday/

Senate Education Committee chair says teacher pay needs to wait on adequacy study

by Roby Brock (roby@talkbusiness.net)

State Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, said it is important to follow the process of an adequacy study to raise teacher salaries in Arkansas.

The chair of the Senate Education Committee, Irvin said she has legal concerns if Arkansas lawmakers deviate from the formula that came from the 2004 Lake View case.

“… Legally, my concern is if you start to pick and choose one category outside of that adequacy process, I don’t think that that’s really following what the court wanted us to do, and so that is a huge concern from a legal standpoint, that you’re right in the middle of a study, you’re right in the middle of the process, and you picked out one category of expenditure and you didn’t take into consideration all the expenditures and the funding needed for public school in its totality, which is exactly what the Lakeview case was really all about,” she said.

https://talkbusiness.net/2022/07/senate-education-committee-chair-says-teacher-pay-needs-to-wait-on-adequacy-study/