Educators and politicians will be doing their best to spin the latest national teacher pay rankings, which put North Dakota just one short of the bottom. South Dakota has the dubious distinction of being dead last.
Instead of seriously addressing the poor ranking, at least one North Dakota official immediately questioned the validity of the ranking system. Bill Goetz, Gov. John Hoeven's chief of staff, said the governor's office is analyzing the data independently to confirm the accuracy of state comparisons.
Fair enough. But even if the rankings are off a bit because of inclusion of teacher benefits in one state and not in another, the long-term trend for North Dakota is clear: The state ranks near the bottom perennially. Quibbling about some elements of the comparisons won't change that.
It's not that the state has not put more money into teacher salaries. The last couple of Legislatures have acceded to the governor's insistence that a portion of state education funding be directed to teacher salaries and only teacher salaries. The result has been an increase in the level of teacher pay in nearly every district. Hoeven gets credit for pushing hard to put more state dollars into teachers' paychecks.
But while North Dakota was adding money for teacher pay, other states were adding more. As a result, North Dakota's ranking slipped. In other words, North Dakota has not kept up with successful efforts in other states to pay teachers more. A good effort, yes. Enough, no.
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Critics of the ranking also try to make the case that North Dakota's salary number does not accurately reflect the range of pay from very small to very large districts. Small district pay levels bring the average down. But other states have large urban districts and small rural districts, yet they do not rank in the teacher pay cellar.
North Dakota has made progress, but not nearly enough. Spin the comparisons how ever you will, but a teacher pay ranking just one short of the bottom embarrasses the state.
