Why Is Illinois’sTop Teacher Salary $108,000 More Than Kentucky’s?

And $95,000 more than WI and $92,000 more than IA and $83,000 more than MO?

Or to put it another way why is IL top teacher salary more than twice as much as Kentucky’s ($203,000 vs. $195,000)?

The answer the above questions is simple: because the National Education Association (NEA) and it’s spawn, the Illinois Education Association (IEA) completely control the political process in Springfield and in every local school district.

What other reason could there be?

Are IL teachers twice as good as KY teachers? I don’t think so.

Are IL teachers twice as smart as KY teachers? I don’t think so.

Are IL teachers twice as deserving as KY teachers? I don’t think so.

Are Illinois test scores twice as good as KY? No they are actually lower.

As you can see from the following table Illinois test scores are generally lower than the adjacent states with much lower teacher salaries confirming what everyone already knows: teacher salaries have nothing to do with student achievement.

Notice how IL scores last in 4 out of the 7 categories and is 4th in two others. Only in “8^th Grade Writing” does it outscore all of its neighbors.

The high salaries in IL are not anomalies.

As can see from the following chart of the Top 10 Salaries in each state the differences are widespread.

And if we look at the number of teachers making more than $100,000 per year the differences between the states are even more pronounced: Illinois has 445 times more $100,000 teachers that the other four stets COMBINED.

Number of teachers with salaries in excess of $100,000/yr. ($11,000/mo.):

Illinois =  7,576

Kentuck y =  ZERO

Iowa =  2

Wisconsin =  4

Missouri =  11

Here are the top Illinois teacher salaries for various subjects. Notice how many high salaries are in non-academic subjects.

Excessive salaries lead to excessively high pensions.

With pension payouts in the $5 million range for the last four years top earners one needs to ask if this is the best use of taxpayer dollars.

And it is not just the top earners either. Just in 2011 alone nineteen 9-months a year teachers retired with pensions in excess of $100,000. In total the TRS (Teachers Retirement System) has 2,840 retirees with pensions over $100,000 and the number is growing by 20% per year.

Here’s a list of the nineteen 2011 teacher retirees with $100,000 plus pensions. Note there are no 40 year careers here in fact they are as low as 27 years and the average is only 32 years. Compare this with a private sector worker starting work at age 22 and working 40 years to get the maximum $22,000 Social Security pension at age 62.

Obviously in the other four states there are no teachers with $100,000 pensions since there are only 11 with salaries over $100,000. This means in 2011 there were more teachers who retired with pensions greater than $100,000 (19) than four other states had teachers with salaries over $100,000 (11).

All of these statistics show that IL pension deficit is due more too excessive salaries than it does to lack of state payments. If Illinois had salaries similar to our neighbors in KY, IA, WI and MO our pension problems would be much less worse than they are.

If IL salaries and pensions were the same as WI we would save $5 billion per year in education costs.

High pensions are due to high salaries and high salaries are due to the NEA. Unless we control the NEA and their undue influence on IL politicians the pension problem will never be solved.