REPORT: Teachers Making $2-5k Less After Act 10

WISCONSIN - Are Wisconsin public school teachers better off than they were five years ago?

According to the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, the answer to that question is a "no," but the study also said they're not worse-off either.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a conservative legal group, released a new report studying how Act 10 has impacted the new marketplace for teachers in Wisconsin after five years of implementation.

The study looked at class sizes, student ratios, teacher pay and workforce demographics between 2009 and 2014, using data from the Department of Public Instruction and school district data from the U.S. Department of Education.

The study says that the average salary and fringe benefits were $2,095 and $5,580 lower, respectively, when averaging the salary level of the three years before Act 10 and during the three years after the law passed, according to a Madison.com report.

Public officials are blasting the report, calling into question its bias based on how the organization receives its funding.

Madison.com went on to report that Betsy Kippers, president of teachers union Wisconsin Education Association Council, issued a statement that didn't address the findings regarding teacher pay.

But she questioned the report, saying that WILL receives millions of dollars from the Bradley Foundation, which is headed by Walker's campaign chairman Michael Grebe.

Kippers called the report "mere propaganda bought and paid for by the same groups that pushed nearly $1 billion in cuts to our neighborhood public schools over the past five years."

The report says that Act 10 has resulted in substantial cost savings to taxpayers. "Our study shows that those savings to school districts had, at worst, a relatively modest impact on the teaching and educational workforce in Wisconsin.

The demographic make-up of the teaching workforce – measured by experience and race - has changed little since the implementation of Act 10."

The Report's Main Findings:

• Act 10 had no significant effect on the number of students per public school teacher.
• Act 10 did not increase the number of students per school administrator and school-district administrative support staff.
• We found little evidence of different impacts by Act 10 between urban, suburban, and rural school districts.
• When compared to surrounding states, we did not find any significant effect by Act 10 on school district spending on teacher personnel gross salaries (including compensation above base pay, such as bonuses).
• There was little difference in overall teacher experience before and after Act 10.
• There was little change in the racial makeup of the teaching workforce before and after Act 10.
• Wisconsin’s teacher decline began before the implementation of Act 10 in June 2011.