Gov. Sam Brownback and Ken Willard: New teacher policy benefits students

Editor's note: The following commentary compares the average salary and benefits of Kansas teachers to the average salary, excluding benefits, of Missouri teachers.

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Students can now learn physics from an astronaut or accounting from a CPA thanks to a new Kansas State Board of Education program that opens public school classrooms to industry professionals.

Allowing field experts with firsthand industry experience into the classroom provides local school districts – those who know the interests of their students best – the flexibility to hire men and women to raise up the next generation of Kansas professionals. Educating our children is not just the responsibility of our schools. Our students receive a better education when their education becomes the responsibility of the greater community, combining the best of what academia and industry have to offer.

This policy is the organic result of innovative thinking from our outstanding educators. In applying for innovative school district status, nearly every superintendent articulated a desire for more flexibility in hiring standards that would allow them to better serve their students. It did not make sense to them that engineers with doctorates could teach at nationally respected state universities, but not in local high schools.

Some will tell you – wrongly – that this change was made to accommodate poor and academically struggling school districts. The six innovative districts include Johnson County’s Blue Valley, one of the state’s wealthiest districts, and McPherson, one of our highest-performing districts. This policy was adopted because the more we empower local districts to make decisions that best serve their students, the stronger our public schools will become.

We value our great Kansas teachers and have worked hard to provide stable funding that gets more money into the classroom, where it benefits students and teachers most. We believe teachers are the most important asset in the classroom, and the numbers bear out this truth. Kansas average teacher salary has increased every year since 2010, and last school year totaled $54,907. Compare this with Missouri, where teachers have experienced two pay cuts since 2010 and average $47,847 per year.

This program brings subject-matter experts in to the school to teach specific topics, benefiting our students. Educators and principals across the state recognized the potential of industry experts working alongside professional teachers. They brought the issue forward and proposed a solution they believe will work. The state’s six innovative school districts can now hire professionals to teach the specialized subjects their students want to learn. This is a victory for Kansas schools and Kansas students.

This story was originally published July 21, 2015 at 7:05 PM with the headline "Gov. Sam Brownback and Ken Willard: New teacher policy benefits students."