CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Chances of an increase in pay for teachers during the 2014 Regular Legislative Session again appears to be a long shot. But, the head of the West Virginia Federation of Teachers believes there is a better way to address the problem of teacher pay.
“What we’re looking for is a long term funding stream and resources for the classroom,” said WV AFT President Christine Campbell said Monday on MetroNews Talkline. “Both of those things cost money.”
Campbell said dedicating a stream of constant money to education would be the way to insure teachers’ salaries in West Virginia are competitive with counterparts in other states.
She also addressed the qualifications for hiring a teacher, a task where she said the educators themselves should play a role in having to hire new teachers. She said that is a time-consuming process, but very important.
“It took longer than it should have for this year’s hirings to get them involved,” she said. “We are encouraging our faculty senates to accept that impairment and work toward having the best people in their schools.”
The conversation about qualifications and pay always comes back to the guidelines by which teachers are judged. Campbell said they believe it’s more important to evaluate the teacher’s performance instead of the outcome of a single examination.
“They’re performance should be the majority of the evaluation system,” she said. “That’s what makes a difference in students is the effective teaching in a classroom, not the results of a test.”