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.
AMEN, not to mention it is a Marxist concept to the core.
Privatize all education. Put it online and in mail-order packages. Employers can use tests.
Public school teacher unions should be outlawed. (private schools fine if they are that stupid)
prohibiting teacher unions is the fastest way to remove the feds from education.
I have an idea!
Insist that all government teachers take and pass the GED by Christmas. ( How many would fail the math portion?) If they fail, fire them.
Insist that all government teachers take and pass engineering and science major Calculus ( by September 2012 with a C+). They take the **same** classes as the engineer and science majors. How many would fail? Most?
No, Calculus is not really needed for most teaching but it would be the best IQ test of all and it would assure that the teachers didn't bring their math phobia into the classroom.
Or whether they actually work or not.
Google "Teacher warehousing, New York City" to cite the biggest example ($200 million a year.)
In the real world, that is almost a universal law.
In a unionized "progressive" universe, all bets are off.
I agree that getting the federal government out of education would be an improvement.
But...All government education must be abolished on every level: Federal, state, county, town, and even city block or suburban subdivision.
Why? Because compulsory attendance, and compulsory funded socialist schooling is a freedom of conscience and First Amendment abomination!
And...All socialist schooling ( even if the district included 50 houses) is socialism.
I too am an Electrical Engineer - 23 yrs out in the field; and have the economic #@*#$&@ kicked out of me. Never took Organic Chem, hopped right into Advanced Chemistry (not sure if that was a good or bad thing - it was hard).
Still, like you, the fact that I have actually DONE these things in the real world, I have seen plant closures, layoffs, companies fail, off-shoring and projects simply cancelled - and have had to sell my house (at a loss) and have had to move to take a job somewhere else.
So, when I hear a teacher who works less than 30% of the time I work, makes similar (if not more) money, has job security and retirement that I will never have - and is far less qualified to hold their job than I am - forgive me if I don’t get overly concerned about their plight.
I think we are on the same page, same verse and even in the same key.
I'm an engineer; but this astounded me. Let me see if I understood this correctly. A college degreed adult, does not understand math well enough to teach a 6th grade student, in a manner that was different than before? Am I missing something?
My reaction is pretty straight forward - you have an incompetent Math teacher. The basic rules of Algebra, Mathematics and Geometry have not changed. If your teacher cannot grasp a different way to present Mathematics, Algebra and Geometry - I'd say the problem isn't with the ciriculmn, it's with an incompetent teacher who should have her Math teaching certificat revoked before she does more damage to her students.
That is a great place to start.
I was thinking of adding onto it this:
How about that teachers have worked in the private sector FIRST, as well. At least five years doing the subject that they teach. Not sure how to quantify that for elementary level, but I like it.
The ending of the liberal “protection” racket of “tenure” needs to be dismantled to the point that liberal dogma is killed.
Being a teacher is a government job not a job of the private sector..
It should a private sector job..
Government workers Unions should be illegal..
thats what i said’’’
Maybe to compensate for the screwing of the public for 60 years or so teachers should be forced to teach for nothing for 60 years. Then we can talk. Reparations!!!!!
1) It is impossible to have religiously, culturally, or politically neutral government school because there is NO such thing as a values-neutral education. ALL government schools in this nation are currently godless, and are promoting the non-neutral cultural and political agenda of the godless left. How can that be constitutional, respectful of the First Amendment, or freedom of conscience. Abolish government schooling. Move to a system of universal private education.
2) Children who attend godless government school MUST think and reason godless just to cooperate in the classroom, read their texts, and turn in assignments. Huh? What happened to the First Amendment and freedom of conscience? This can not be fixed. It must be abolished.
3) ALL government schools in this nation are socialist. ALL of them are a socialist social program! Merely be attending children learn that the government has the police power to force children to use the socialist service and to force taxpayers to pay for it. Well! Gee! Why not use that government power for lots of other socialist goodies. This can not be fixed. It must be shut down!
Yes... but would man-hours and woman-hours be equal?...
The whole of this government is socialist.
From schools to TARP to Income Tax, it is ALL an edifice of socialism.
But too many here refuse to see, and will allow the commies to successfully label the coming failure of the banks on Capitalism. And why is that? Because too many REFUSE to see that this country is soaked in socialism and won’t call a spade, a spade.
It is too comfortable to not rock the boat.
And it is THEY who will have helped the commies tear down this country, because doing what they, and their parents, and their parents after them, is just too darn .......easy.
Freedom is a use it or lose it basic human law. Don’t want Freedom, don’t get your kids out. Want FREEdom? Get your kids out, then. Otherwise you are just fooling yourselves, and cowards.
Get the federal government OUT Of the education business.. They should not be doing anything with education..
Certainly better than what we have.
All education should be local... under local control.. Or State controlled..or a mix..
State control and "local" control is **still** government! The more powerful voting block gets to control the indoctrination of the next generation of voters. This would be true even if the districts were as small as the size of a suburban housing division.
Please remember that a values-free or neutral education is utterly and completely impossible!!!! When government control schooling they **WILL** establish the NON-neutral religious, cultural, and political values of the most powerful voting block and crush those who are politically weaker.
“Amen!” Says this member of the choir! :-)
You seem not to understand how the game is played. The average starting teacher doesn’t last more than five years. It is a bit like the military The job is rougher than it might seem from the outside or from your seat in the back of the classroom. It is a bit like the old brownshoe Army of pre-world war II, with the beginning teacher being not unlike a recruit. There were lots of potential recruits with the high unemployment rate, and the farms blowing away, but the Army had a hard time filling the ranks. At the same time, they did not hestitate to get rid of the losers. Quality was a secondary consideration. The samething is true in the public schools.
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