Tribune Watchdog: Suburbs' $100,000 teachers
| | Thu, Jul 15, 10:08 AM
July 15--An extraordinary number of public school teachers in the Chicago region earned $100,000 or more in 2009, straining school budgets and taxpayer wallets and fueling the debate over what teachers are worth and how they get raises.
In the affluent enclaves of Highland Park and Deerfield, almost half the teachers in Township High School District 113 took home six-figure salaries -- the highest percentage in the state.
In Park Ridge and Hinsdale, about 43 percent of high school district teachers earned $100,000 or more, according to a Chicago Tribune salary analysis.
Six-figure teacher salaries of that magnitude are rare elsewhere in Illinois and in most parts of the country.
The highest-paying districts note that they are top performers that get accolades and national rankings, and they need to be competitive to attract top teachers as parents expect.
But the six-figure salaries highlight disparities that have persisted between rich and less wealthy communities in Illinois.
What's more, it's clear that some districts have over-extended themselves, and are asking teachers unions to come back to the table to help contain spending in a bad economy, with mixed success.
In the Chicago region, $100,000 salaries are most common in fields ranging from algebra, biology and U.S. history to art, instrumental music and physical education.
The Tribune examined salary information for nearly 132,000 full-time Illinois teachers who worked a traditional nine- or 10-month school year in 2008-09. Salaries provided by the Illinois State Board of Education encompass all earnings, including extra stipends for coaching and sponsoring school clubs as well as retirement perks.
Among the findings:
--About 4 percent of teachers statewide earned $100,000 or more -- 5,457 teachers -- but the vast majority worked in the Chicago suburbs, with heavy concentrations in north Cook, DuPage and Lake counties. In all, 32 Chicago-area districts paid at least 20 percent of their teachers six figures -- five times the state average.
--Districts used taxpayer dollars to pay $100,000 salaries even as they struggled with red ink. A third of districts with unusually high concentrations of teachers making six figures -- at least 10 percent of teachers -- posted operating deficits in 2008-09, according to state financial data.
--Six-figure teachers were unevenly distributed, with high school teachers making up 60 percent of the group -- more than double their representation in the teaching force. Affluent suburban districts had the largest concentrations of six-figure teachers. Less than 1