Students in the ISU College of Education may be seeing higher paychecks after graduation if proposals to raise teacher salaries pass the Iowa Legislature during the next session.

Iowa is ranked as one of the lowest-paying states in terms of teacher salaries, and several proposals have been offered to Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack to raise teachers’ base salary to be more competitive with other states.

“I know there are two proposals being offered by study groups to Gov. Vilsack,” said Sen. Johnnie Hammond, D-Ames. “He is looking for something different from both.”

Hammond said the dilemma of low teacher salaries is a big problem without an easy solution.

“The first proposal is to bring anyone with a salary below the base up to the base amount,” Hammond said. “The problem with this is people who’ve been working awhile are below base, and frankly we don’t have money in the budget to play with. The second one is that every teacher would receive a pay raise of $2,000 whether they have 25 or 15 students. This brings in urban versus rural problems — the money disproportionately flows to smaller school districts.”

Whichever plan legislators decides on, Hammond said it will take several years for the full plan to be implemented due to the condition of the state treasury.

“Teachers will have a larger-than-average pay raise, but this is not the ultimate goal,” she said.

Continued education for teachers and keeping quality teachers in Iowa schools also may be legislation introduced.

“We do have a blooming problem with teacher shortages,” Hammond said.

Ann Thompson, professor and chairwoman of curriculum and instruction, said ISU students in education are heavily recruited by states such as Texas and California, which have severe teacher shortages.

“Iowa has an outstanding education system, but if it’s not competitive in salary, we will lose quality teachers,” she said. “We need to try and keep the well-trained teachers in Iowa.”

Kara Lympus, junior in elementary education, said salary is only part of why she wants to teach.

“If I found a job out of state and I liked the community and school, I would take it, but salary isn’t the only thing I’m looking for,” she said.

Lympus also said the amount of education a teacher has also affects his or her salary.

“I’ve seen how my mom [an elementary teacher in Cedar Rapids] has dealt with having a lower income and how she is more determined to get a higher education, like a master’s degree, so she can earn more,” she said.

Laura Gude, junior in elementary education, said she would be more likely to teach in-state if she had more incentive.

“We do have numerous quality school systems, but I’ll have to go where I’ll get the best offer,” she said. “Just paying teachers more isn’t going to get quality teachers in the school systems. There needs to be some kind of incentive for teachers to keep up to date on the newest happenings in education so students get the best possible education.”

Gude, like Lympus, is following her mother into the teaching field. Gude said knowing about her mother’s experiences as a teacher gives her an idea of what she will face in the work force.

“A [management information systems] student in their first year will be making more than my mom after a master’s degree and more than 20 years of teaching,” Gude said.

Mary Hagensick, an English teacher at Edgewood-Colesburg High School in Edgewood, said that while many school systems in Iowa are very good, they lack the funding to raise teacher salaries.

“Gov. Vilsack would like to improve teacher salaries overall, and it’s a very noble cause, but he’ll have trouble finding the funds,” she said. “I’ve been teaching for 31 years, and my son has been in landscape architecture for four years and makes $10,000 more than I do. We lose good potential teachers because of the salary situation, and I think that’s sad.”