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Show Utah's teachers salary schedule 'misleading' schools and other extended schedules, sche-dules, we feel this failure to report this additional money seriously understates Utah's average teacher salaries," Mr. Stephenson said. "When all of these factors are taken into consideration, we feel Utah's teacher salaries compare very favorably with other states. We feel that the National Education Educa-tion Association should be comparing com-paring salary schedules, not just average salaries to determine how well teachers are paid. Recent NEA reports showing that Utah's average teacher salaries salar-ies rank 37th in the nation are misleading, mis-leading, according to the Utah Taxpayers Tax-payers Association. "The salary figures published by the National Education Association Associa-tion do not fairly represent Utah's teacher salary schedules," accord-ing accord-ing to Howard Stephenson, spokesman for the tax watchdog organization. "The figures, which are supposed to compare the relative rela-tive earnings of public school teachers in the fifty states, don't take into account several factors which have skewed Utah's average teacher salary downward," Stephenson said. "Utah recently took approximately approxi-mately 1,000 of its highest paid teachers off the payroll through the early retirement system. Teachers who took early retirement comprised com-prised about six percent of Utah's teaching staff. These teachers were replaced by newer teachers near the bottom of the salary schedule. This made Utah's average salary drop drastically even though the salary schedules were not cut," Stephenson said. "Another problem is that because be-cause Utah has the highest birth rate in the nation, we are hiring more new teachers than most states. These new teachers and their starting salaries make Utah's average salary look lower," Stephenson said. Still another problem with the use of average teacher salaries is that Utah does not report the full salaries of those receiving career ladder compensation. It is estimated esti-mated that reporting career ladder money would increase Utah's reported re-ported average teacher salary by $1,700 to $1,900," he explained. Finally, Utah does not report the full salaries of teachers who work a year-round or extended schedule. With the increase of year-round |
