Posted on 11/01/2011 9:11:48 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Education Secretary Arne Duncan thinks public-school teachers are “desperately underpaid” and has called for doubling teacher salaries. In a new paper co-authored with Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation, I look into whether teachers really are desperately underpaid, or underpaid at all. Jason and I find that the conventional wisdom is far off the truth.
At first glance, public-school teachers definitely look underpaid. According to Census data, teachers receive salaries around 20 percent lower than similarly educated private-sector workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says teachers’ benefits are about the same as benefits in the private sector. But both the salary and benefits figures are dubious.
Most teachers have Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees in education, and most people with education degrees are teachers. Decades of research has shown that education is a less rigorous course of study than other majors: Teachers enter college with below-average SAT scores but receive much higher GPAs than other students. It may be that a degree in education simply does not reflect the same underlying skills and knowledge as a degree in, say, history or chemistry. When we compare salaries based on objective measures of cognitive ability — such as SAT, GRE, or IQ scores — the teacher salary penalty disappears.
And the real world bears this out: Contrary to teachers’ insistences that they could earn more outside of teaching, we show that the typical worker who moves from the private sector into teaching receives a salary increase, while the typical teacher who leaves for the private sector receives a pay cut.
If salaries are about even, benefits push teacher pay ahead. The BLS benefits data, which most pay studies rely on, has three shortcomings: It omits the value of retiree health coverage, which is uncommon for private workers but is worth about an extra 10 percent of pay for teachers; it understates the value of teachers’ defined-benefit pensions, which pay benefits several times higher than the typical private 401(k) plan; and it ignores teachers’ time off outside the normal school year, meaning that long summer vacations aren’t counted as a benefit. When we fix these problems, teacher benefits are worth about double the average private-sector level.
Finally, public-school teachers have much greater job security, with unemployment rates about half those of private-school teachers or other comparable private occupations. Job security protects against loss of income during unemployment and, even more importantly, protects a position in which benefits are much more generous than private-sector levels.
Overall, we estimate that public-school teachers receive total compensation roughly 50 percent higher than they would likely receive in the private sector. Does this mean that all school teachers are overpaid? No. But it does mean that across-the-board pay increases are hardly warranted. What is needed is pay flexibility, to reward the best teachers and dismiss the worst.
— Andrew G. Biggs is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
Judging by results I guess you would say they are paid too much.
I've got an Electrical Engineering Degree (have taken the courses that you mentioned, EXCEPT Organic Chem....shudder....). I've got 20+ years in IT, and can design an Fortune 500 Companies' enterprise-class infrastructure from scratch.
Per The Current Educational System, I'm completely unqualified to teach a basic computer skills class to 8-year-olds.
Therein lies the problem. Too many "Education" majors, and not enough people who actually understand what they're teaching.
I dont know but lets find out. How about we put each teacher position into a one year consultant’s contract (at fully burdend rate) and then go to the market. We could put these out as base amount at the current salary and then open the positions up to commercial bidding to see if anyone would under bid the current price. Allow teachers to bid for thier own positions. Heck, allow unions to bid on those positions as well along with commercial staffing firms.
Establish minimum qualifications for the position (background check, credentials, etc) and place the notice out in Feb for businesses to respond between April and May for the delivery contract starting in Aug and run through the next school year. If not qualified contracts are received, then keep the same individual in the same position.
Reasonable assessment until the last line. Doesn’t he know WHo employees teachers? Not schoolboards, who only hire the top administrators. “educators do, and they set the standards for teachers, both in who they hire and in the standards they demand of the teacher colleges. They don’t want the teacher colleges to require high standards for admission; they don’t demand rigorous courses.They want the teacher colleges to produce docile employees of modest attainments. According to the law of every state, the school system decides whom the teachers shall teach, what they shall reach, and how they shall teach. For this reason, school teaching has never been a profession, but what the sociologists call a “semi-profession.” because while the teacher has responsibilities that are professional, they lack professional standing. Unlike doctors, lawyers, veternarians, accountants, etc, they do not have to meet rigorous standards. To require this of teachers would greatly limit the number of teachers, which is why public educators do not demand this of them. Furthermore, the whole concept of the general schedule added to the unwillingness of school system to pay premiums for teachers of subjects such as math and science, means that all teachers are paid the same. In Texas, the only field where a teacher can expect to earn relatively high pay is the football coach.
Get the federal government OUT Of the education business..
They should not be doing anything with education..
All education should be local... under local control..
Or State controlled..or a mix..
Then the kids and college kids would get a good education..
They don’t want highly skilled persons.
Bump to your comments about home schooling. Amazing what can be accomplished in so little time when you have dedicated students that are truly interested in learning.
That fact you can create, in two hours a day, kids that are way above grade level speaks volumes about that system, doesn’t it?
Stand fast.
Rubbish. Everybody is paid what they’re worth. And if they’re not, they should go take the higher paying jobs that await them elsewhere.
But, of course, this isn't a rational world.
That being said, there are damned few real teachers in the teachers' unions!
Get rid of the Department of Education, the teachers' unions and get the teachers back to teaching the basics and the truth and then let's talk about rewarding the real teachers for turning out quality products with real employment skills.
Actually, it’s around 184 working days per school year. However, teachers who are good teachers typically work 50 hours a week at school, not including the time spent at home grading papers. I work with teachers who are in the classroom 1.5 hours before their students, and who do not leave school until 5:00 pm or later (2+ hours or more after the students have gone home). Of course, there are teachers who arrive just before the students and leave shortly after the students (fulfilling the minimum contract hours). Many of the teachers who put in the extra time also work during summer school (now down to approximately 4 weeks from 6 weeks).
>> That fact you can create, in two hours a day, kids that are way above grade level speaks volumes about that system, doesn’t it? >>
Thanks for the comments on home schooling - and the two hours a day (average) is easy to understand when you realize there is no time lost hanging around the lockers, doing the lunch room thing, waiting for and riding buses, and study hall etc. These are necessary parts of any mass system which simply exists because we think it must.
Plus the fact that they are not true professionals. If I am a Dr. I can practice anywhere. A teacher who moves from one school district may loose seniority and or pay grade.
If they got paid by what they produced, they are way over paid.
Sometimes I think their pay should be compared with that of baby sitters, and not that of educators.
Unfortunately, my current networked server will not permit me to watch the ?Video? you provided in your link. I won’t be able to watch until later this evening. For the purpose of providing a response now, could you provide some idea of what you want me to comment on?
Trillions have been spent on education and all the turn for the most part are jay walkers.
I meant my post for all on the thread. It is a video that exposes the monopoly that Unions exercise over education and how alternatives provide far better returns and results
And for far less cost as well!
Most teachers have Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees in education, and most people with education degrees are teachers. Decades of research has shown that education is a less rigorous course of study than other majors: Teachers enter college with below-average SAT scores but receive much higher GPAs than other students. It may be that a degree in education simply does not reflect the same underlying skills and knowledge as a degree in, say, history or chemistry. When we compare salaries based on objective measures of cognitive ability — such as SAT, GRE, or IQ scores — the teacher salary penalty disappears.
Most of the several states have given a monopoly on producing "qualified" or "certified" teachers to colleges of education. Some even extend that monopoly to private schools if their diplomas are to be recognized by the state.
Back when my father went to high school (class of 1940), all of his teachers had at least a masters degree in the subject they taught, some had doctorate in the subject they taught, not in education, not in [subject-name-here] education, in the actual subject. Until the normative credential for teaching high school or even middle school, is again degree in the subject taught, and we find a way to keep semi-literate math-phobic ditzes from filling the vast majority of K-5 teaching slots, K-12 education cannot be fixed. And both of those reforms require the several states abolish the monopoly they have granted to colleges of education, and, ideally, imposed more rigorous requirements on publicly funded colleges of education that don't fold as a result of losing their monopoly.
Teachers are treated as production workers because they are production workers.
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