Education Secty: Teach All Year Long

By ESTES THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer

U.S. Education Secretary Richard Riley said Tuesday that teachers must be better paid and work year round if American schools are to shed outdated ways and improve.

"We have an old agrarian schedule, an outdated factory model and an antiquated wage system," Riley said during his annual address on the state of American education.

The address, Riley's seventh and final, was made before students, elected officials and educators at Durham's Southern High School, a previously low-performing public school that turned itself around.

"For the last 100 years, American education has been defined by certain assumptions," Riley said.

"One assumption was that the job of a teacher lasted nine months. The second assumption was that we would always have a ready supply of dedicated teachers, mostly women, who for relatively low wages would teach our children their lessons."

Riley said he wasn't proposing year-round schools for all children. He said school schedules were better left to local school boards.

But he said: "I believe that making teaching a year-round profession is the future of American education."

Kathleen Lyons, spokeswoman for the 2.5 million member National Education Association teachers' union, said Riley's proposal is welcome.

"They are being compensated for much less than what they are actually working. The year-round plan and increased pay would move us toward treating teachers as professionals and compensating them as they deserve," she said.

She said a teacher's work year could be up to 10 months. The average salary for a public school teacher was $40,582 during the 1998-99 school year.

Riley said teachers' pay is not catching up with the demands made on them. Recent studies show that the annual income gap between experienced teachers with masters' degrees and people in other fields with the same level of education is at least $32,000. "In this time of economic prosperity, with state coffers expanding, there can be no excuse for shortchanging our students and their teachers," Riley said.

Riley released a 29-point report card on education showing improvements in reading, math and science scores, technology and opportunities for disabled students. But the report card also showed a worsening of student college debt, the gap in Internet access between poor and wealthy schools and drug use.

In the Republicans' official response to Riley's speech, Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., said Congress over five years has spent $1 billion more than the Clinton administration has requested.

Wilson said education decisions must be made locally "by somebody that knows your child's name."

	This article was originally published by The Associated Press on February 24, 2000. © 2000 The Associated Press

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