Benson Proposes State Increase in Teacher Salaries

An assistant professor at the Graduate School of Education proposed yesterday that Massachusetts should provide funds to help cities and towns raise teacher salaries as much as 25 percent.

Charles S. Benson, assistant professor of Education, in a report submitted to the Massachussetts chapter of Americans for Democratic Action at a convention yesterday, said that expansion of industry in the state has placed a heavy demand on the school system to provide more and better-educated workers.

Benson asserted that the demand should be met by increasing the number of teachers, rather than by crowding classrooms, and that the 25% raise would make it possible to attract more and better instructors.

"Massachusetts as an industrial state," he said, "is peculiarly dependent on the character of its human resources." In addition, many of the important new industries, engaged in research and development, require workers with "analytical skills," he stated.

Also discussed at the convention was a proposal for state tax reform, announced Friday by Arnold M. Soloway, assistant professor of Economics. Samuel H. Beer, professor of Government, state chairman of the ADA, has asserted that both fiscal and educational fields of state government are "in desperately bad shape."