Nearly all of Northern Kentucky's 16 public school districts pay teachers more than the statewide average. Educators say increasing competition among Tristate school districts fuels the higher pay rates.

        The two separate sets of salary rankings — one by the Kentucky Educational Development Corp. that serves school districts and one by the Kentucky Education Association teachers union — were conducted differently. While they each show different statewide rankings for Northern Kentucky's districts, both showed Northern Kentucky salaries to be generally higher than the state average of $37,957.

        The highest average teacher pay in Northern Kentucky, according to the survey, is in Boone County, followed by Dayton, Newport, Kenton County and Walton-Verona. Teachers in highest-paying Boone County make $3,065 a year over the state average, or $40,789 a year.

        Just across the river, Cincinnati Public School teachers earn an average salary of $53,000.

        Beechwood Superintendent Fred Bassett said teachers in Northern Kentucky are paid more than most others in the state “due to the competition for teachers with high-paying Ohio districts just across the river and the competition among Northern Kentucky districts.”

        The lowest teacher pay in Northern Kentucky is Southgate, which ranked 172 out of the state's 176 districts in average pay, with teachers earning an average of $34,955 . Southgate's schools go only to the eighth grade; students go elsewhere for high school. Pendleton County ranked 65th in the state, with a $37,885 average teacher pay resting about $1,000 above the state average.

        Kenneth Hines, KEA's assistant director for research, said data used by his group is based on the actual number of teachers in classrooms, whereas KEDC measured all steps in the salary schedules.

        KEDC is an education cooperative that provides a variety of services to its 66 dues-paying member districts, including professional development and grant preparation. KEA is the state's largest teacher union.

        Kentucky's average teacher salary — between $36,000 and $38,000, depending on analysis by varying education agencies — is lower than the U.S. average of about $43,000. Still, Mr. Hines said, that doesn't spell good news for states that pay teachers more.

        “All of them are inadequate. It's nice to compare and say, "This average teacher salary in this district is higher than the average teacher salary in this other district,' ” Mr. Hines said. “But what we really see if we look across the profession is that average teacher salaries in Kentucky and in other states simply are inadequate.

        “We're losing teachers. We are finding ourselves having to use more and more emergency certified teachers that are not well-prepared to begin their teaching careers.”

        The Education Professional Standards Board issued 1,811 emergency certificates in 2001-02, nearly 400 more than the previous school year.

        “It's one of the things that we're least proud of in this state — that our teacher salaries are always below the national average,” said Lisa Gross, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Education. “It's just difficult to fix without extra funding. Particularly coming up with this next year, we cannot expect districts to go much above what they're mandated to do when it comes to raising teacher salaries. The money just isn't there.”

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