One of the focal points of the legislative session is pay raises for teachers and school support staff. House Education Chairman Nancy Landry expects the pay hikes to go through, because there is bipartisan agreement that teachers do not get enough.
“Most of us would like to see a bigger pay raise than what the Governor has proposed but we don’t think that we’ll be able to afford anything bigger than the $1000 that is included in the MFP right now,” said Landry.
Governor Edwards is behind a $1000 pay raise for teachers and a $500 raise for support staff. Edwards also supports an additional 39-million dollars in public school education funding. But Landry is not on board with that proposal.
“We are already at the national average in per-pupil spending and so you might see some pushback on that $39 million because there’s just not the urgency there,” said Landry.
Landry says she’d rather see additional funding for early childhood education to help working families who can’t pay for high quality daycare.
“The recent brain research from the last 20 to 25 years is just so compelling about developing the right synapsis in the brain during that critical time period,” said Landry.
