After COVID heroism, underpaid Missouri teachers more than deserve proposed tax credit
Some of our neighbors have faced special challenges battling the COVID-19 pandemic. Health care workers, day care providers and first responders have dealt with long hours, isolation, even threats to their own health as the virus raged.
They deserve our profound thanks and deepest respect.
Teachers are on that list, too. Many risked their own health to teach in person, often to unvaccinated students. They are among the true heroes of the COVID age.
Yet they aren’t treated that way. The average Missouri teacher earned less than $51,000 in the 2019-2020 school year, among the lowest salaries in the nation. The salary for a starting teacher in Missouri was the lowest in the nation last year.
The problem is particularly acute in rural areas, where hiring and retaining teachers can be difficult. In 2020, according to one study, the minimum salary for a Missouri teacher with a bachelor’s degree was just $33,133 in districts with enrollments between 700 and 1,000 students.
Working long hours for low pay is bad enough. But it’s even worse because in the current environment, teachers are subject to enormous and unmerited criticism for curriculum choices and teaching methods.
Missouri lawmakers are demanding more “transparency” from teachers, when, as any teacher will tell you, parents can already find out what their kids are learning by going online or picking up the phone. The conservative assault on teaching, and more broadly public education, is relentless.
As a result, teachers are leaving the profession, and education students are switching their majors. Fewer teachers mean bigger classrooms, which further endangers our kids. Some critics of public schools admit they’re trying to drive teachers in taxpayer-funded schools out of the classroom as part of their push to save money, shrink government and fully privatize education. What would happen then to all the kids private schools would never take? That does not seem to concern them.
Missouri state Rep. Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat, has offered a bill that partially addresses these issues. She wants the state to offer a one-time-only $5,000 tax credit to teachers and “educational staff members” at public and private schools throughout Missouri.
Because the tax credit would be refundable, Quade’s bill would put cash in the pockets of thousands of teachers and assistants.
“Without teachers and support staff, schools do not exist,” Quade told us. “Yet the pressures of the pandemic and intense partisan attacks are causing many folks to contemplate leaving the profession.
“Giving educators well-deserved tax relief is a way to both demonstrate gratitude and reimburse them for the personal expenses many incur.”
It isn’t clear how much Quade’s bill would cost. It is clear Missouri has plenty of money to offer the one-time credit, and lawmakers should do so this session.
Kansas should consider a similar payment. Like Missouri, Kansas has the money to make it happen.
While offering teachers a bonus is an important and necessary gesture, it isn’t enough. Missouri should pay its teachers more each year, and Gov. Mike Parson has proposed helping districts raise salaries for some teachers. It’s a start.
But more must be done. Parents can help by taking a real, nonpolitical interest in what their kids are learning, while ending the badgering that has become commonplace in some schools.