Paying Teachers Properly

2 May 2020

School started in MNPS in August 2019 with 94 teaching positions still vacant. More than half of MNPS teachers leave the district within their first three years of teaching, and first-year teachers who choose to live in Nashville pay almost half of their paycheck, on average, for rent. In the 2019 Tennessee Educator Survey, 33% of teachers in Nashville reported they would leave the profession if offered a higher paying job. This is simply unacceptable for a city that dominates economic growth in the state and is known worldwide as an “it” city. Our teachers deserve to be treated like the professionals they are and be paid accordingly. Additionally, any form of “merit pay” is an effort to avoid the need and cost of raising salaries for all teachers. In essence, it’s a ploy to avoid paying teachers what they are truly worth, and there is little, if any, real connection to the quality of instruction.