In the Clark County School District (CCSD), teachers with a master’s degree earn an extra $5,655 annually, while teachers who also have an advanced certification receive $8,845 more. Nationwide, most school district contracts provide higher salaries based on extra coursework and advanced degrees. Indeed, it is estimated that about half of all teachers in the United States have such an advanced degree.
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The Nevada Policy Research Institute (NPRI) recently posted higher education spending rankings for 507 public colleges and universities in a database created by the Education Trust, a left-of-center think tank on higher education. The rankings include 3 categories of per pupil spending, “Instruction spending per full time student,” “education related spending per full time student,” and “education and general spending per full time student.”
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Nevada, like most states, requires potential teachers to become certified by the state. In Nevada, teachers must hold a bachelor’s degree with 22 credit hours devoted toward “professional education” coursework, including eight credit hours of unpaid student teaching. After the coursework students are required to take Praxis examinations which cost several hundred dollars. Potential teachers in Nevada will spend up to four years and thousands of dollars just to become licensed. Once a teacher becomes licensed by the state, they must continually renew their teaching certification.
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The governor’s proposed budget requests that state workers have their salaries cut by 6 percent. Nevada state employee pay ranks 16th highest in the country according to the Statistical Abstract of the United States but how well are teacher’s paid in Nevada?
In his State of Education address Friday, Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Jim Rogers questioned Nevada’s education system, asking,
“What then has made the Nevada education system go from good to average to less than average since the 1960s when Nevada’s high schools won multiple awards for being among the best in the nation?”
The answer is: a massive increase in per-pupil spending over the years, with absolutely no accountability to parents and taxpayers.
In 1960, Nevada spent $430 per pupil—roughly $2,837 per pupil in 2005 dollars. By 2005 the state was spending $7,198 per pupil, an inflation-adjusted increase of 153 percent. When one includes capital outlays and school debt per pupil, spending has more than tripled since 1960.
