EDITORIAL:Our teachers shouldn’t be among lowest paid

Newport-Mesa school officials need to ask themselves a basic question.

Should an area that boasts some of the most affluent residents in the world, top-level colleges and universities, Fortune 500 companies, premium health care facilities, world-class performing arts centers and pricey real estate also have the lowest paid teachers in its public schools?

To us, the answer is clearly no.

By that, we don’t mean to imply that the district should turn on the money spigot and give raises with abandon. In fact, we urge the district to continue to manage the budgets with an eye toward fiscal conservancy and the taxpayer’s pocketbooks.

But allowing the teaching staff to be paid the lowest in the county just isn’t acceptable either.

Teachers make the argument that the price of living is skyrocketing; that not only can they not afford to live in Newport-Mesa, but they can barely afford to live in Orange County.

In that regard, they are not alone. Many, besides teachers, are feeling the economic pinch of living in such a well-heeled part of the planet.

So we feel more empathy than sympathy, and it’s going to take an astronomical pay increase to change that fact of life.

Instead of making that argument, we think the district and district teachers need to think about competition.

If indeed it wants to attract the best teachers, the district needs to compensate them accordingly.

If current trends continue, it won’t be long before the brain drain commences and the best and brightest of the Newport-Mesa teacher corps will head off to better paying districts.

We are sure that’s not what district officials, teachers and parents want.

So we urge district officials to get the salary of district teachers back on track and put together a compensation plan that will get them closer to the top than the bottom, because as the old adage goes: You get what you pay for.