Well done MVWSD and MVEA! I want my children's teachers to be happy with their place of employment and well paid for their time and skills. Thank you for some refreshingly good news.

After years of comparing our teachers to far away K-8 districts, leaving our teachers underpaid, it is very wonderful news our teachers get what they deserve, pay comparable to nearby K-8 districts. Thank you to the superintendent and school board for focusing on teachers as the foundation in which all else is built.

MWSD will be slightly higher than Los Altos and Cupertino, as it should be for a city that wants a world class school system that succeeds with diverse students.

The way CA funds schools, we will never be able to pay teachers what is right, but it is right that we pay them the very most we sustainably can.

LAHS teachers are paid well over 300k, while MVWSD teachers are paid less than 90k. That is a huge gap in comparison! Teaching is quite a random profession when one can either get paid very well, or not enough to live in a city like Mountain View. I do agree with 'reader' that teachers should be paid well enough to be happy and provide better education for students.

Observer, what is the source of your information that "LAHS teachers are paid well over 300k"? I would like to read more about that.

Here is the link for the Salary Scale for Los Altos teachers. Web Link

Dear friendly neighbor, thank you for sharing that link. It is the salary schedule for the Los Altos Elementary School District. I believe Observer was referring to Los Altos High School teacher salaries.

The corresponding schedule for the MVLAHSD is here: Web Link

In it, the highest salary is $149,586. I am still wondering which LAHS teachers Observer is referring to that are paid $300k. I'm wondering if $300k, if accurate, is a number that includes all forms of benefits, or is an administrator's salary.

Big across the board pay increases would make a lot more sense if tenure were abolished. A good teacher is worth her/his weight in gold. A poor teacher, not so much.

Computerized learning will be the new form of teaching, where kids can learn from the best teachers in the country. Thanks to Unions, our CA schools are at the bottom and with all the additional money spent on them they are not getting any better.

Glad to see that MWVSC teachers will be paid closer to their peers in surrounding districts. It's about time!

ah - my computer - when I use the internet to learn, shows me that CA is not, as you claim "at the bottom". That I think we all agree would be 51st out of 50 states (+DC). One of the many recent metrics (Statistica.com) on State 8th Math proficiency, shows CA at 38th (27%). This is compared to MASS at 1st with 51%.

CA has been showing very slow gains, from even lower on the comparison scale. Although 'just money' does not help when student academic programs are not improved, just money can help winnow out good (academic) programs from chaff - and fund the most productive academic programs.

Kudos to Trustee Blakely - for starting to ask the hard academics/$$ questions: 'does this program make sense, do these programs make a measurable academic difference'? (Sept 7th Board discussion on after school programs and more spending)

money helps keeping classes smaller than 30 students.

@me - smaller class size studies show? What is the academic achievement/$$ delta? Does it depend on what grade level and what student demographic? High performing or low performing students? Low economic families or high economic families?

Getting teachers at higher pay, is not by itself a solution. Keeping the best ranked teachers (median academic effectiveness or greater) or initially attracting the best prepared teachers is certainly part of the academic improvement solution.

I am not sure I understand "Me"s comment. If we raise teacher salaries, there is less money to hire extra teachers (i.e., reduce class size). While I agree that we need to come up with the money to attract and retain good teachers, my understanding is that teachers are more worried about working conditions than salaries. That is the impression I get from talking to teachers and the impression from random articles I have read (e.g., Web Link You need to pay teachers a lot to put up with district level decisions like the way Teach to One was pushed out and the involuntary transfer of three of Mistral's most experienced teachers this summer. Next year, expect more big raises, less experienced teachers, or a teacher shortage coming to a school near you.