South Dakota must work to fix teacher salary problem

Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Given the truthfulness of this statement, don’t expect the people of South Dakota to be the engine of that change anytime soon. The state of our educational system is not optimal, and, in fact, it is sub-prime.

South Dakota consistently ranks at the bottom of states regarding wages paid to teachers in the public school system.

Currently, pay for teachers in South Dakota ranks last among the 50 states.

The teacher shortage this state is enduring is no secret. The problem has reached such levels that Gov. Dennis Daugaard felt compelled to explore remedies for this problem.

He appointed a task force to look for ways the state can close the gap on teacher pay with other states throughout the country.

This Blue Ribbon Task Force, as it came to be known, consisted of different members of the legislative and administrative wings of the South Dakota government, and also included teachers throughout the public school system of the state.

They were appointed this past March and since then, they have been conducting open and closed-door meetings to gather proper suggestions. The task force also allowed for proper public input on multiple occasions.

Overall, 29 recommendations were made to Daugaard with one specific end-game in mind. The task force wants to raise the pay of teachers to nearly $50,000 a year by raising an additional $75 million dollars to cover the costs. Education budgets will remain the same aside from this one area the task force feels is necessary to address.

The committee suggests strongly that the state phase in a higher sales tax over the next three years to make this change possible.

They also cited efforts by Daugaard to raise a similar amount of revenue to pay for roads throughout the state as a sign that it is possible to alleviate this problem without changing the status quo too much.

The road funding battle required a two-thirds majority and passed by a razor-thin margin. It is important for state legislators to get on board with the recommendations and realize there is a problem in order to get anything done. Daugaard alluded to this need to work for a solution.

“If everyone recognizes we are going to try and find a package that addresses inequities and addresses inefficiencies and addresses teacher pay and incentivise schools to utilize funding to address teacher pay, then hopefully we can get reforms that can work for South Dakota,” Daugaard said in a statement.

The committee further recommended that lawmakers in South Dakota convene sessions every three years to review the salaries of the teachers and ensure South Dakota is competitive with the rest of the country in terms of teacher pay.

Furthermore, the task force informed the governor, in their final report, that the student to teacher ratio needs to be capped at 14 to 1.

The state must consider all possible methods to ensure teachers have competitive salaries in order to attract teachers to work in the state’s schools and that includes the dreaded proposition of raising taxes.

South Dakota has one of the most tax-friendly policies in the entire country. South Dakota residents are, generally speaking, not complaining about being over-taxed like many of the residents of other states.

This is partly due to the fact that South Dakota is just one of a few states that has no state income tax. The conditions are favorable to a modest tax increase of some kind to address pressing issues.

These factors make the proposition of raising taxes a viable solution for the teacher salary crisis in the state. Raising sales taxes by a fraction, in line with the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Task Force, could be the start of a permanent solution to the educational quagmire that permeates the state.

The Volante calls on all legislators and their constituents to realize that we need to properly compensate teachers to make the idea of working in South Dakota an appealing offer.

We cannot allow the situation that is causing our teachers to leave in favor of work in other states to continue. This directly affects USD and its School of Education. We are investing in future teachers, and the state must prove to them we want them here making a difference in children’s lives.

A tax on consumption in the form of a heightened sales tax is a reasonable way to achieve this.