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.
Okay! $3.00 an hour is an estimated rate for child care services. A typical teacher works a 7 hour day. So, 7 X $3.00 = $21.00 a day. Oh wait! that $3.00 per hour is per child. So, we then have $21.00 X 30 students, giving us $630.00 per day. Then, we take $630.00 X 184 work days and we get $115,920.00 per year.
Are you sure you want to pay teachers the same rate as a Childcare provider (which, for the record, $3.00 an hour is a very low estimate).
Virtually all are. A degree in education erodes marketable skills; it doesn’t add to them. Today most are in teaching because they would be unable to find indoor work with no heavy lifting anywhere else.
Wrong. Get all government out of education. Why are “conservatives” so enamored of educational socialism? “Government education” is an oxymoron.
For example, my 12 year old granddaughter was struggling last year in 6th grade with the math curriculum. When we talked to the classroom teacher about the problem, the teacher stated she and her colleagues were still learning the new material and were unable to answer our questions, or help the students. She complained about the new curriculum, but explained that teachers were powerless to do anything about it.
That's the world of public education today. Teachers, the good ones, are hamstrung by policies which originate elsewhere and by people who haven't got a clue as to how children should be taught.
If there are plenty of qualified applicants, then they’re overpaid.
Why is there such a large turnover in teaching materials and curriculums in our public schools? I would think that it is counter productive.
It would seem to me that oce you found a method that works you would stick with it. The money spent on new materials and training for the new curriculums must be astronomical.
What irritates me is that government teachers are paid to teach students to think and reason godlessly. ALL government schools in this nation are godless in their worldview. Simply by attending children **must** think godlessly just to cooperate in the classroom, read the textbooks, and turn in assignments.
I don't want my tax dollars going to people who undermine the faith of children and preach the gospel of godless secular humanists....And...ALL government teachers do simply by agreeing to teach in the government schools.
Also....ALL government schools in this nation are socialist. They are socialist funded. The teachers who willingly work in these socialist schools support and uphold socialism. Also....Children who attend learn that the government has enormous police power to **force** taxpayer to pay for, and to **force** children to use, this tuition-free socialist service. Well?....Gee! If government can give kids free school, why not use the force of government to give them lot of “free” socialist goodies.
I object to forking over tax dollars for that socialist indoctrination, too!
NO NO NO government teacher in this nation is doing a “good” job. Why?
.... Because teaching children to think and reason godlessly is not “good” !It is evil! It is instead a First Amendment and freedom of conscience abomination. Neither it is good to support a system that teaches children to be comfortable with socialism.
You need to look state by state. My wife has been a teacher for 23 years in Alabama. $40K after 23 years is underpaid. But she loves it and will nver quit.
LOL! That’s even funnier in Spanish!
Sounds to me like any typical socialist program. Once government socialism takes over excellent service is scarcer, that which is available is of poorer quality, and all of it is more expensive.
Socialist schooling? What were the 19th century progressive reformers thinking?! What we have today was inevitable!
We learned that years ago at my house, when my mother went to the Principal to complain about my brother’s particularly inept chemistry teacher.
The Principal looked her in the eyes and said “you are absolutely right, but I can do nothing. My hands are tied by the union”.
Well put. I am a teacher in the Deep South. No union. Contract from year to year. I make less than half what teachers up north make. I do not want the federal government in education. I agree with the problem with textbooks. I use the oldest books I can find. The new books are garbage. I proudly do not have an education degree. My degree is in history and that makes me “highly qualified” according to the school system. I only had to take 9 hours of education courses to get my license.
Then, by definition, she's not underpaid.
Your are forgetting the day care regulations though. A licensed baby sitter is limited regarding the number of children she can watch. Beyond that number she must hire someone to help her. Did you take that into account.
In my state, licensed day care providers must make hot lunches available. When as many as 30 students are involved the kitchen and health regulation are not trivial. Have you checked out the cost of a restaurant approved dishwasher lately? ( just wondering)
Then as the number of children increase the health, safety, and fire regulations become more onerous. Did you subtract out the expenses of renting a handicapped accessible space with that is equipped with all the needed disability, safety, and fire protections? I suggest that you check into the cost of plumbing and outfitting a wheel chair bathroom....and...don't forget that a wheelchair bathroom takes up *lots* of space on which you will pay rent for as long as you own the school.
You too! Fabulous. I have a history degree as well, but I still have to do my certification to teach in the state of TX. I’m teaching part time in a private school right now, but hoping to land a full time job soon.
bfl
The BETTER question is:
Are public school teachers UNDEREDUCATED??????????????
THAT is the BETTER question.
Not only no, but
HELL NO!
Not if her job description hasn't changed.
Please can I persuade you to thing about this?
Yes, getting the federal government out of education would be an improvement, but, what's needed is complete separation of school and state on every level. Why?
Answer: Because it is impossible to have a religiously, politically, and culturally neutral education. It is an impossible state of existence.
ALL government schools ( even if the district were the size of city block) establish the NON-neutral religious, political, and cultural worldview of the biggest voting mob, and trash the most precious values of others. No child should be forced to attend this and no taxpayer should be under police threat to pay for it.
ALL government schooling is a First Amendment and freedom of conscience abomination. This is true even if the district were the size of suburban housing division.
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