Faculty members at the 14 state-owned universities, including Slippery Rock University, have acted responsibly in “agreeing in principle” to negotiate a one-year wage freeze amid the prospect of a 50 percent 2011-12 reduction in state funding for their schools.

Their willingness to sacrifice is a positive example for public school teachers to follow to help their fiscally challenged districts avoid or minimize tax increases.

The president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association on March 16 responsibly encouraged PSEA members statewide to “seriously consider” Gov. Tom Corbett’s request that teachers agree to a one-year pay freeze.

Unfortunately, Ted Kirsch, the Pennsylvania president of the American Federation of Teachers — the union has a membership concentrated in the Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Scranton areas — has refused to support that request because of what he said were the “many sacrifices in contract negotiations over the last few years of economic turmoil” that his members have made.

Kirsch ignored the generous pay raises teachers have continued to receive at a time when workers in other segments of the economy have experienced wage freezes, givebacks, job upheavals, and job losses.

Meanwhile, James P. Testerman, the PSEA state president, in urging his members to share the sacrifice dictated by the economic and state budget situations, said PSEA members “have been willing to be good public partners and tackle tough issues before, and we’re willing to do it again.”

However, so far, no school district teachers bargaining unit in Butler County has stepped forward to jump on the bandwagon of sacrifice.

For example, at the Butler School Board’s regular monthly meeting on Monday, the issue got no mention.

A statement by the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF), the union representing instructors at the 14 state-owned universities, said the faculties’ action is “in the context of similar sacrifices shared by our administrative and management counterparts.”

However, Ken Mash, the state APSCUF vice president, said the state union wouldn’t necessarily rule out its wage freeze if administrators and management didn’t also opt for one.

On the public school district front, it would seem that if teachers opt for the freeze — and there is no guarantee that they will — administrators also should take that step as a means for helping their districts meet the coming year’s budget challenges, and as an example of shared sacrifice.

Even without such a commitment from their district’s teachers to date, Seneca Valley School District administrators commendably have taken a pay freeze that will save the school system $181,000.

At this troubling budget time, there probably is no school district in the state that has the luxury of avoiding such extraordinary actions as have been requested by Corbett and his 2011-12 spending plan.

With APSCUF’s current four-year contract set to expire on June 30, the necessity to negotiate a new pact anyway provides a bargaining window that many public school districts don’t have with contracts that won’t be expiring for several years.

But even if that complicates the issue of public school teachers giving up a year’s raise, it should not make such a concession impossible.

Corbett has committed himself to turning around the state’s dire fiscal situation without raising state taxes. The spirit of the university faculties’ offer needs to extend to the local level as well, where teachers’ salaries have continued to greatly exceed the rate of inflation.

It’s time for teachers in school districts across the commonwealth to make their position on a wage freeze known.