Wednesday, May 1, 2019

MDE: Teachers Will Get Pay Raises

The Mississippi Department of Education issued the following statement.

The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) is working with every school district in the state to verify the total number of MAEP-funded teachers and teacher assistants to update the cost of the teacher pay raise. Once finalized, the MDE will provide this information to lawmakers and work with them to obtain the additional funding for the pay raise.

“Let me be clear, all teachers and teacher assistants will receive their well-deserved pay raise,” said Dr. Carey Wright, state superintendent of education. “State-funded teachers will receive their raise with state funds. Federally funded teachers will receive their raise with their district’s federal funds.”

The MDE expects to have the total number of state-funded teaching positions and the funding amount finalized by mid-May.

Districts will be allocated enough money through the current appropriation to cover the monthly cost of the teacher pay raise. Legislative leaders have pledged to approve a deficit appropriation in January to fully fund the pay raise.

Previous teacher pay raises were allocated to districts through MAEP, which is the state’s school funding formula. At the MDE’s request, this year the Legislature appropriated the FY20 teacher pay raise as a separate line item from MAEP so that each school district could clearly determine the amount appropriated to cover the pay raise.

In an overabundance of caution to ensure that federally funded teachers were not captured in the estimate for the state-funded teacher pay raise, the MDE extracted the number of positions based on the funding code in the Mississippi Student Information System (MSIS) that referenced MAEP-only funded teaching positions.

Based on feedback from district superintendents, the MDE conducted an additional review of the total number of state-funded teaching positions. During that review, the MDE determined there are additional state-funded teaching positions that MSIS does not capture as MAEP-funded positions. Due to this limitation of MSIS, these teaching positions were inadvertently excluded in the count that was used as the basis of the appropriation. The MDE’s review revealed that MSIS does not currently have the capability to collect locally-maintained, teacher-level funding source data.

The MDE requests funds annually from the Legislature to modernize MSIS, which was created in the 1990s. MDE’s FY20 appropriation includes $500,000 to begin the process to modernize the statewide student information system.


Anonymous said...

Could have been a lot shorter. "We messed up, but we will fix it by going back to the legislature and doing it right next time, promise. We can cover it anyway because we have too much money on our hands anyway."

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know just how much teachers think that they deserve to be paid each year? Most of my adult life there has been a perpetual drum beat for more, more & more money. What would it take($$$) to get the teachers union to put down those drum sticks?

Anonymous said...

Right. We wouldn’t want anyone associated with the state government to try to explain anything remotely complicated. That would border on being transparent, which is like kryptonite to yokels like you, @4:54.

Anonymous said...

Will Madison County Educators get a bonus again this year.

Anonymous said...

I stopped reading at the end of the first sentence. Why don't they already know the number of teachers? That would seem to be a critical, preliminary piece of information to have in order for Wright's department to even think about functioning.

This is akin to the head of a corporation having no idea how many business units the corporation has....and having to 'work with' others to 'find out'.

Anonymous said...

5:41 - There is no such thing as a 'teachers union' in Mississippi. Here, put on this cap and sit on the dunce-stool.

Anonymous said...

Wonder if the administrative layers are technically considered "teachers" and likewise eligible for raise?

Anonymous said...

The whole system needs a forensic audit. Corrupt to the bone.

Anonymous said...

Ah, so the clueless Dr. Wright has found a scapegoat- an antiquated computer system.

Anonymous said...

@5:41 they will be paid enough when we no longer have a teacher shortage. Supply and demand.

Cynical Sam said...

Methinks they should sell some bonds and use the money to hire a consultant to determine how many teachers are on the payroll.


Anonymous said...

How did the head of the Legislative Budget Office not catch this?

Mbrookes said...

I am a retired public school teacher. When I was teaching my salary was competitive with other salaries in Mississippi. This is the poorest state in the union. Don't expect to make what the richest states make. Teachers know what the salaries are before they train. As to the teacher shortage, look at the conditions of teachers. I stopped fights, took away weapons and tried to teach over people that did not want to be taught. Improve the discipline in the schools and you will have more good teachers.

Anonymous said...

9:37 - Sorry, but when you were teaching, there were no other jobs in Mississippi to compare with public school teachers. How did you manage to compare your teacher-salary with positions that existed nowhere in the labor market area?

And, assuming you might have retired with 30-35 years, you finally managed to reach 50k unless you had an advanced degree. How the hell is that competitive? If you had been a BS degreed manufacturing engineer you'd have retired at 80k.

Anonymous said...

This is a MDE screw up, plain, simple, period.

Rod Knox said...

But the degree-d manufacturing engineer works 12 months out of the year 5:34. Kids aren't picking hoeing and picking cotton from June until September anymore in Mississippi. Mississippi could lead the way for a change by moving to a 250 day school year. Quite a few teachers when pushed seem to prefer all the weeks. They find all manner of excuses to continue that outdated situation while comparing their pay to full time full year positions.

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