After a nine-day strike that ended two weeks ago, West Virginia teachers managed to secure a 5 percent pay raise, among other concessions. Though the strike may have been a sign that unions are getting weaker under current conditions, it also may have been symptomatic of a larger issue with how teachers’ pay schedules are structured. In the National Review, Reihan Salam writes that “Most everyone…agrees that there is something wrong with the way our educators are paid.” But instead “of allowing teachers unions to seize the initiative, state lawmakers need an affirmative agenda for how to fix teacher pay.” Salam goes on to cite Jacob Vigdor, who tackled the problem of teacher pay schedules for us in his 2008 article “Scrap the Sacrosanct Salary Schedule.”
—Education Next
