The Teacher Salary Myth -- Are Teacher Underpaid?
My new column in Forbes addresses a topic I wrote about over 6 years ago, and got a ton of feedback on.
The problem with salaries for government workers like teachers is that, in a monopoly (particularly one enforced by law), the usual checks and balances on compensation simply don’t exist. Let’s say a private school gives its teachers a big raise, and has to raise its tuitions to pay for those higher salaries. Parents are then left with a choice as to whether to accept the higher tuitions, or to look elsewhere. If they accept the higher fees, then great — the teachers make more money which is justified by the fact that their customers percieve them to be offering higher value. If they do not accept the higher tuition, the school withers and either changes its practices or goes out of business.
But what happens when the state overpays for teachers (or any government employee)? Generally, the govenrment simply demands more taxes. Sure, voters can push back, but seldom do they win in a game dominated by concentrated benefits but dispersed costs. On a per capita basis, teachers always have more to fight for than taxpayers, and are so well-organized they often are one of the dominant powers in electing officials in states like California. This leads to the financially unhealthy situation of a teachers’ union negotiating across the table from officials who owe their office to the teachers’ union.
We might expect this actually to lead to inflated rather than parsimonious wages. To see if this is true, we have a couple of different sources of data within the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to help us.
Click through to see the numbers, which tell the story pretty clearly
Understanding Educational Reform (Part 1)
In order to reform education it is first necessary to identify the source of the problem. The principle problem with public education is that society refuses to recognize the hard underlying cultural and social realities and instead have created a delusional curriculum.
OUR society believes we live in lake Wobegon! We legislate curriculum and enact public policy as though everybody is above average.
We have created a religion that everyone should go to college and structure our k-12 school accordingly.
We deny that ability affects performance.
We deny the fact there are real differences in population. Little people should not be encouraged to seek a career as an NBA center.
Only about 10-20 percent of the population gain skills in college that are directly central to their post college job performance. For the rest of those going to college, a BA or BS is nothing more than a $100,000 to $250,000 job screening test. For most jobs, business don't need the skills from college, they use the diploma to separate the intelligent, motivated and hardworking from the slackers. Tbats why most of those reports about how a college diploma earns an extra $1000000 are wrong. Its intelligent, hardworking, and motivated people that earn more money. Those also happen to be the skills necessary to earn a degree. Businesses are simply using college as a job applicant filter. If our society stopped sending our youth to college to get unnecessary degrees, business would simply have to create a different job applicant filter. Our society would save $100,000 to $250,000 per student plus get 4 more years of productivity out of our population.
Why acting as though everyone is above average is insane. In the 19th century, during the height of the nature/nurture debate there were actually serious attempts to teach calculus to horses! We still haven't learned.
When I went to High School so many decades ago, about 20 percent of seniors took precalculus. Forty percent took Trig, and Forty percent took no math having finished their requirement.
I went to a Suburban Middle Class ethnically NON diverse high school. Statistically. Assuming a hierarchy of ability with precalculus student being on top:
Precalculus Students would have had a median IQ of 123 and ACT Scores of 27.
Trig Students would have had median IQ's of 108 and ACT's of 22.
The curriculum for these classes are designed on the assumption that these were the populations being served.
Our legislature in its wisdom, now requires AlgebraII/Trig be taken by every junior and that all students continue with senior mathematics. This is so EVERYONE can be prepared for college. This is justified by research which shows that students who take high level math classes are more successful in college. Rather than realizing that people who take high level math classes are smart and smart people do well in college, our legislature decides that we simply make everyone take high level math classes and then everyone will do well in college.
Now, a suburban high school would have had course adjustments. The top 20 percent take AP classes (AP CALCULUS OR STATISTICS), the next 40 percent take precalculus and the bottom take a course like statistics (using a college text but not one for math majors)
So the class designed for students with IQ'd of 123 and ACT's of 27 are now being taken by students with IQ's of 108 and ACT's of 22. The class for the slow students (stats) has a median IQ of 91 and ACT of 17.
No wonder there is an achievement problem.
Now consider the denial of differences in society.
I teach at an urban school. Half our seniors are put in precalculus and half in statistics.
The median IQ for precalculus is a 92 and ACt score is a 17 the median IQ for statistics is 75 and ACT score is 14!
Gee, put mentally slow kids in a class for gifted students and they perform poorly. Put borderline special ed students in a college level math course and they perform poorly. Must be poor teachers.
We've got to stop wasting resources trying to teach calculus to horses.
We need to restructure the curriculum so that their are appropriate classes for students of differing abilities that lead to real job opportunities not just college.