Columbia, SC (WLTX) South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley announced her budget proposal for next year, focusing on improving schools, social services reform, building safe communities, and having effective and sustainable health services. Her school reform plan would offer incentives to get good teachers to go to and stay in rural districts that now have the highest turnover.
"This is a massive rural teaching initiative, but this is the way that we think we can get great teachers into our school districts," she told reporters at the Statehouse Monday.
The plan has several parts:
1. Someone starting college to become a teacher could have her tuition paid for by the state by agreeing to teach in a high-turnover district for eight years after graduating.
2. A teacher who's already finished college could have her student loans repaid by committing to teach in a high-turnover district for four years.
3. A teacher in her first five years of teaching could get a salary bump by going to a high-turnover district, with the salary being what she would get if she had five more years of experience.
4. And a teacher with more than five years of experience could go to grad school at the state's expense in exchange for teaching in a high-turnover district for four years.
She would pay for her plan by phasing out the additional money the state now pays teachers who get National Board certification. Depending on when they applied, the state now pays teachers an extra $7,500 or $5,000 a year for getting that certification, and it's paid up to ten years, the length of the certification. Teachers already getting that additional money would continue to, but new applicants would not be paid any extra for getting National Board certification, if lawmakers approve her plan.
"This will probably take a couple of years to see what it's going to do," she says. "Now we're going to go into heavy recruitment mode to get these teachers in, but I think it's probably the best bet we've got right now. I'm really excited about it."
