There have been so many observations and comments made at online sources … and many are simply opinions … not founded with supporting data.

Columbia’s teachers are the “lowest paid” – According to the openPAgov.org Website, Columbia Borough School District has nearly 20 teachers who earn just over $76,000 annually; the median annual salary is $51,581. Additionally, there are benefits including health care and retirement benefits. The teachers in the $70K strata are in the range of the annual average income of most of Columbia’s police officers.

Almost all Pennsylvania school districts have employment contracts, and the contracts are downloadable at the openPAgov.org Website.  Albeit, the contracts on file are old contracts.

How does CBSD salaries compare with parochial school teacher salaries? According to PrimarySchoolTeacherSalary.com, “The average salary for Catholic School Teacher in Columbia, Pennsylvania is $41,253. If you were to work as a Catholic School Teacher in Columbia, Pennsylvania you could expect a starting salary of $33,973. You could expect to make a salary of around $48,533 after some time.”

Unless public school education is demonstrably superior to parochial school education, and we could find no evidence it is in Columbia, an argument that teacher compensation as an indicator of success or failure does not hold water. One recent program may shed a different perspective on the issue, though.

“What would happen if the very lowest performing teachers could be replaced by just average teachers?

Or maybe … “We blame our teachers so we won’t have to blame ourselves.”

In the model for educational success is Finland. In Finland,

• there’s a “near absence of poverty”,
• most students speak three languages and
• the teaching profession is revered.

Columbia has too many renters! That’s the problem. Census data does not support that argument. The percentage of multi-unit properties in Columbia are not significantly different from the other larger boroughs in the county. Home ownership – homes that evidently are not rented to “renters” – is not significantly different either.

The presence of poverty may be part of the issue.