School chief envisions day when best teachers get paid $200,000

CARSON CITY - Nevada's new schools superintendent hopes for a time when the state's best teachers will earn $200,000 a year and top college graduates will choose teaching over professions that are traditionally more lucrative.

"I want a (new college graduate) debating, 'Do I go to law school? Do I get an MBA and go to work for Goldman Sachs or do I become a teacher?' " Superintendent of Public Instruction James Guthrie told members of the Legislature's Committee on Education on Thursday.

"In tomorrow's world, the best teachers earn $200,000," said Guthrie, adding that paying all teachers that much "is out of the question."

According to the National Education Association, teachers in Nevada earned an average of $53,063 in 2010-11, ranking the state 20th the nation. That is $2,600 below the national average. New York teachers earned the highest salaries, at $78,708 a year.

Throughout his first address to the committee, Guthrie emphasized that all the improvements he wants are dependent on "when financial circumstances permit it."

That qualifier immediately was noted by Assemblyman David Bobzien, D-Reno, the chairman of the committee.

"Sometime the state has to get past the fact of when revenue becomes available," he said. "We have to redouble the effort to our kids and make that investment."

Guthrie, 75, comes to Nevada at a time when the state is emerging from a recession and legislators for two consecutive sessions have reduced education spending.

Total current school spending for the two-year budget period is $6.018 billion, down 9.1 percent from the $6.689 billion in the 2009-11 period, according to the Legislative Appropriations Report.

Four hundred teachers in the Clark County School District, the state's largest district, were recently sent layoff notices because of funding shortfalls.

The Nevada State Education Association and the AFL-CIO are circulating a 2 percent business margins tax petition that would raise an estimated $800 million a year for education. If the groups secure sufficient signatures, then legislators would consider the petition in 2013. Gov. Brian Sandoval, who hired Guthrie, opposes the tax petition.

The NSEA, which represents the state's teachers and education support professionals, did not return calls for comment.

The tax increase would need the approval of two-thirds of legislators. Voters in the 2014 general election then would decide if they want the state to implement the tax. Most Republican legislators probably would oppose it as they did during debate on a similar tax plan in 2011.

Neither Bobzien or any other members of the committee made any comment on Guthrie's vision of $200,000 teacher salaries. Guthrie's own salary is $121,785 a year.

In his address to the committee, Guthrie called for establishing full-day kindergarten programs across the state and placing more children in preschool programs, goals legislators were pursuing before the recession hit. He also said schools must take steps so all children can read by third grade, adding: "If you cannot read, the world is really closed to you."