EDUCATION: Shed bureaucrats and pay teachers more

The teachers are not the problem with state education spending. If anything, more of them are underpaid.

The budget for K-12 education for the next two years is $18 billion. The McCleary decision indicates spending needs to increase $3 billion per biennium.

Of the $18 billion being spent on education, 27.3 percent (teachers get 59 percent) of this goes to administration, support and other. This is $4.9 billion.

The teachers are the ones who educate are kids, not the ever growing layer of of nonteaching positions who generally make a lot more than the teachers do, work fewer hours and have a whole lot less stress.

So let's lower the bigwigs' wages and pay the workers more. Let's take $3 billion of the administrative costs, which do nothing to educate our kids, and put it back in the classroom and teachers' pockets. The $3 billion would raise compensation of all teachers by 16 percent.

If we really care about about our kids, get rid of the bureaucrats and pay the teachers more.

This story was originally published September 21, 2015 at 1:31 PM with the headline "EDUCATION: Shed bureaucrats and pay teachers more."