In different circumstances, if Mississippi politicians had reneged on what seemed to be an ironclad election-year promise to raise teacher’s pay, the teachers and their unions would have been storming the Capitol, demanding that lawmakers live up to their campaign pledges.
There was hardly a peep, though, after the House killed a Senate bill this week that would have raised the pay of all of the state’s public school teachers and assistant teachers.
The teachers, to their credit, recognized that with the economy and tax revenues in freefall thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, and with tens of thousands in this state thrown out of work over the past three months, now is not the time to complain — especially since the teachers did get to keep the $1,500 raise that the Legislature approved last year.
As Erica Jones, president of the Mississippi Association of Educators teachers union, correctly noted, “The reality is that it’s not just educators’ experiencing financial hardship right now.”
Much has changed for the worse in this state since early February, when the Senate unanimously passed a measure to increase teacher pay by at least another $1,000.
Schools were among the first to be locked down in March, with everyone asked to work and learn from home for the rest of the semester. State tax revenues went from a projected surplus for the year to hundreds of millions of dollars short.
Although federal stimulus money has softened the pain for many of the unemployed, it’s going to be a while before most of the state’s newly jobless are back to work.
Given the current economic scenario, teachers should be more worried about job security than a pay hike.
The Mississippi Department of Education this week released guidelines for opening schools up in the fall. Following them is going to create higher operating costs, including reduced class sizes for in-person learning, upgraded technology for distance learning, additional sanitation supplies and additional bus routes. The MDE plan did not suggest from where that extra money is going to come.
If the state doesn’t have it and the federal government doesn’t provide it, that leaves local taxpayers looking at tax increases. There won’t be much appetite for that, though, if the jobless rate remains in the double digits statewide.
The financial ramifications of the pandemic, and the decision to commit economic suicide in response to it, are going to take some time to play out. It’s not difficult to predict that teachers won’t be the only people asked to be satisfied with what they’re earning.
