My Turn: Do Mississippi teachers deserve a raise? - MSNewsNow.com - Jackson, MS

Philip Gunn, Speaker of the House, is supporting an across the board pay raise for teachers. 

Governor Bryant and Lt. Governor Reeves are pushing a merit based raise. 

Ordinarily I would support giving raises based on performance, but Mississippi has fallen so far behind on teacher salaries that an across the board raise is the only fair place to start. 

Base pay for starting teachers in Mississippi is so low that we are losing our best and brightest to other states before they even have a chance to teach in Mississippi. 

Alabama's starting teacher salary is $5,000 higher and Louisiana's is $7,000 higher. 

Work on getting the base pay up and then you work on a fairly based merit system. 

Speaker Gunn is right on this issue.

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