Posted on 02/02/2007 8:55:08 AM PST by dashing doofus
Who, on average, is better paid—public school teachers or architects? How about teachers or economists? You might be surprised to learn that public school teachers are better paid than these and many other professionals. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, public school teachers earned $34.06 per hour in 2005, 36% more than the hourly wage of the average white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty or technical worker
(Excerpt) Read more at manhattan-institute.org ...
Call me a radical but one of the biggest budgetary items for any state or local government is public education. The country would come a lot closer to resembling what conservatives say they want (in both positive socialization of children and smaller government) by eliminating or making the public schools, 'welfare schools.'
Like food, clothes and other necessary items, the market should determine the true price of these items.
I'd also add that health care benefits should be divorced from our jobs. As Milton Friedman pointed out, the entire concept is a holdover from a bygone era. By putting all of health care back in the market, you will see prices decline, just as you would see the price of 'education' plummet (for the most part) from what it costs now.
Then it woudln't matter what teachers got paid because it wouldn't be coming directly out of our taxes and it wouldn't set up a conflict of interests and an eternal adversarial relationship between the system and parents. It would also foster a more 'diverse' educational environment for children and parents. A true 'market' where they are not already paying for taxes AND paying for private school for their own offspring.
Health care and education do have their private components. Anyone is free to purchase concierge service health care or private school. The fact that many/most people can't afford them is another question entirely.
The problem is, it is the professional 'education' cartel that mandated the credential. It's what keeps civic-minded chemists, businesspeople and many others from leaving the private sector to do teaching work (except in a few places where they might still teach in private systems.) As shown repeatedly by many, including Gatto and Martin L. Gross, the advanced "Education" edifice is nothing but a fraud upon the higher education system and the people who are forced to spend more money to often be indoctrinated. It's that segment of higher education that most often advances the detrimental fads like whole-word learning and the like.
Letting ANY public sector employees unionize was the death of the US.
We've seen nothing but increased taxes, cost of living, often low quality of customer service, criminalization of anyone daring to offend or anger a government employee, etc.
SOME US public schools are not a nice place for children.
There, I fixed it for you.
considering the cost of living in Fairfax, that's not exactly a huge (overpaid) salary.
A source?
Are you a conservative? Have you read ANY article by any pundits or columnists in the last 10 years, man!?
Seriously, it's WELL-KNOWN that the US spends more per pupil than any other country in the world.
Who cares? If I made 50K a year right now, I could take all of it in the 9 months and would have saved more than enough to live on.
Hell, if someone gave you 100K for one month's work, are you going to complain that you aren't drawing regular checks in the other 11?
We actually don't spend more per pupil.
Since a great deal of our taxes (expenses that cannot be foregone for most) go to the non-private components of our society, it is not a true market.
Right now, I have my own health plan instead of my employers because I want the PPO not an HMO and the PPO costs twice going through them as through the Regence-Blue Shield I found online. But I wonder what the market would be if everyone actually had to choose their own insurance and didn't expect/demand (especially the public sector employees which really skews the market price) insurance with their job.
And schools? Come on, people already pay property tax or some other form of tax to subsidize other people's children. By the time you get to private schools, you're paying twice for that.
Considering that starter homes begin around 300k - yeah, it's pricey to live there. What many teachers do - and I may be one of them one day - is to live in an outer rim county and commute in. The downside to that is sitting in bumper to bumper traffic 90 minutes each way. Hmmm, nope, not for me! I don't need money that badly yet - of course when I have 2 in college, things may change.
OK, what is YOUR source for that?
Is this very recent data which would demonstrate a change in the last 5 years or so or are you including perhaps a tiny but rich country like Singapore or something?
Do you have to get a degree in education to be a teacher? I'm curious.
Don't forget that we all pay property taxes whether or not we have kids in the school. Based on my family's income, over the course of our lifetime, we will pay for our 2 kids, and about 10 others.
But I wonder what the market would be if everyone actually had to choose their own insurance and didn't expect/demand (especially the public sector employees which really skews the market price) insurance with their job
It would be like any other commodity. You'd have a high end end a low end. Since healthcare is largely a "for profit" deal, the luxury care would be very good and the low end would be very bad or minimal. No different than cars or clothing or housing.
One of the studies I read from a psychologist stated that one of the PRIMARY ways you can increase happiness in your life is to reduce or eliminate your commute.
Now, obviously, this can't always be done. I'm lucky that I live on-site. I don't make as much money as perhaps I could in another location but with gas, aggravation, exposure to sun and pollution and the added risk per mile on the highway, I've gotta say I'm pretty happy.
For the moment. But then I'm on my own and no responsibilities other than the stupid student loans.
If you want to teach high school, and increasingly middle school, you must earn a degree in a subject area and then a masters or additional course work in education. Elementary teachers are the only ones with education degrees, and I understand there are moves a-foot in some colleges to end that practice and have all teachers major in a subject area.
From what I've heard with HMOs (including some employer-provided or subsidized ones) we already have that spectrum you describe.
In fact, uh, we already have that with education. Not sure what your point is.
The average (or at least median) price point would still be lower and we would have more freedom to spend what we CHOSE to on these items.
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