Perdue boosts pay for some teachers

Georgia is sweetening the pot to lure badly needed math and science teachers to its classrooms.

Gov. Sonny Perdue on Wednesday signed a bill to boost salaries for secondary school teachers with proper math or science certification. The pay hike would begin next year.

The state faces a “critical shortage” of the specialized teachers, Perdue said. In the 2007-08 academic year, Georgia colleges turned out 2,000 early childhood teachers but only one to teach physics, nine in chemistry and 140 in math.

The bill Perdue signed would allow new math and science teachers to start at the salary of a fifth-year teacher.

That’s an increase of about $4,561, to $37,985 a year, according to the state salary schedule. The teacher’s salary would then continue to rise a step every year for five years. After that, the increase would be tied to student performance.

The new law focuses on high schools but would also reward elementary school teachers who increase their competency in math and science by handing them a $1,000 annual bonus if they earn an endorsement from the Professional Standards Commission.

The incentives will cost about $9.9 million a year.

It will need to be in the fiscal year 2011 budget that Perdue will unveil next January.