U.S. Education chief Arne Duncan: Double teacher salaries
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter/rrossi@suntimes.com September 9, 2011 9:16PM
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (from left), U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Gov. Pat Quinn, CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard and Mayor Rahm Emanuel listen to a reporter's question during a press conference following a panel discussion to emphasize the importance of education (as part of Duncan's "Back to School" bus tour) at Schurz High School, 3601 N. Milwaukee Ave., Friday, Sept. 9, 2011, in Chicago. | John J. Kim~Sun-Times
Updated: September 10, 2011 6:30AM
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday that teachers have been “beaten down for too long” and endorsed “doubling’’ their salaries.
“We need to elevate teachers,’’ Duncan told a gathering of officials and educators in the fresco-ceiling library of Carl Schurz High School.
“I think we need to double salaries for teachers. We need to start them at a much higher level.”
Teachers “shouldn’t have to take a vow of poverty,’’ Duncan said. “Great teachers should have the chance to make — pick a number — $130,000, $140,000, $150,000.’’
But if President Obama’s new American Jobs Act is not passed, Duncan said, waves of teachers could be laid off across the land and class sizes could rise.
He said his three-day, six-state bus tour that ended Friday in his hometown of Chicago exposed him to “repugnant’’ stories about the threatened loss of 420
