# Pay Teachers More **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 13, 2011, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532 "2011-03-13T13:46:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/61 "2011-03-14T00:03:22Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Right…but I would also say it’s on the people who want to boost teacher pay by 50% to figure out how to make it work, and just bankrupting State governments and/or raising taxes for all the people who work in that State or own property in that State for the sake of boosting teacher pay isn’t going to cut it. > > For people like me to ever vote for politicians that advocate big bumps in teacher salary I would definitely require it be done in a way that doesn’t totally fuck over States with unsustainable long term pension obligations. Public employees (including teachers) have the pension systems they do because long ago it was seen as a _service_ for the greater public good, that paid worse than what you could have made elsewhere. The trade off was partially just a feeling of civic pride, and then the monetary compensation was the fact that the State would take care of you for the rest of your life. If you guys want to make significantly more than the average college educated worker in the United States then I can’t see a compelling reason to keep the benefit system, you’re no longer taking lower pay so why should you get anything different than those other workers? I agree with you. completely. I am just pointing out some potential pitfalls. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/62 "2011-03-14T00:05:11Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Yeah, I’m not concerned too much one way or the other over the two months teachers get off. I don’t even know that I really like the idea of year round schooling, I know some studies have suggested it creates better student performance but I think it’s good for young children to have time out of the year to just _be kids_. Of course, I guess in this day and age the summer months are probably spent 24/7 watching TV and playing video games, which I have less interest in seeing on a societal level. > > Commercial fishermen work fewer months out of the year than teachers, and they actually make fairly good pay. I don’t see many people saying they have it easy, so no, how many months you work out of the year isn’t automatically indicative of how hard you work. Having the summer off made sense when we were still a largely agrarian society. It was cheaper to have the kids off school to help with the farm work rather than pay laborers to do it. In modern times, however, many families have two or more workers, so they need safe, reliable child care during the summer. And, of course, the first few weeks to a month of school are spent playing catch-up to review the material the kids forgot over the summer, which is a waste of instructional time. So having year-round school with two-week breaks every few months makes a lot more sense. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/63 "2011-03-14T00:07:00Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > but I think it’s good for young children to have time out of the year to just _be kids_. How could they possibly be anything else? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/64 "2011-03-14T00:13:36Z")
> [@MsRobyn](#): > > In modern times, however, many families have two or more workers, so they need safe, reliable child care during the summer. And, of course, the first few weeks to a month of school are spent playing catch-up to review the material the kids forgot over the summer, which is a waste of instructional time. So having year-round school with two-week breaks every few months makes a lot more sense. Yeah, this is a really good point. I know a lot of parents who are almost pathetically grateful when school begins, because the summers are so expensive, or because they’re not really sure how to keep a child engaged for weeks on end. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/65 "2011-03-14T00:16:46Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Yeah, this is a really good point. I know a lot of parents who are almost pathetically grateful when school begins, because the summers are so expensive, or because they’re not really sure how to keep a child engaged for weeks on end. That’s a big difference in today’s society versus when I was a kid. When I was growing up it wasn’t seen as the job of parents to keep children entertained. I played outside during the summers. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/66 "2011-03-14T00:18:52Z")
I should also add that after retiring from the military I did five years with a State agency that provided services to the mentally ill and developmentally disabled. I don’t think in the entire time I was there there was ever less than a 40% vacancy in case workers (licensed social workers); and they made far less than educators in Virginia and because of the requirement they be licensed social workers they were just as educated. Teaching isn’t the only thing we have shortages of but people don’t really tend to address or even note the major shortages in other areas of State government. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/67 "2011-03-14T00:23:47Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > OK, it looks like there was a teacher shortage some 10 years ago. But again, in this economy? There’s this huge demand for teachers, and this high unemployment rate. Is there any evidence that these unemployed people are trying to get certified? If not, then something is wrong, and it’s not pay. Look to game theory. When you are unemployed you have at a few options: - Look for a similar job that pays as well or better than your last one. The sooner you start looking the better, because a person unemployed for any period of time is suspect. - Pay money to get trained in a different field. This is tough because you just have unemployment and still have all the bills you had before as well as paying higher health insurance rates (yes, even with COBRA). You need to be pretty sure that you will get that job, because not only are you laying out cash for training, you are also putting less time into looking for a job. - Look for a similar job for a while until you determine there isn’t one, then not have enough money to get trained and pay bills. - Take a crappy job to pay bills and then have neither time or money for certification. In a sane society we would train people for jobs we know are available in advance. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/68 "2011-03-14T01:23:15Z")
I think we also have to look at it from the consumer side of things, too. People pay for what they value, and if they think higher teacher pay is worth it, then they’ll pay. And I don’t mean answering “yes” to a poll asking if teachers should be paid more. I mean voting at the polls for tax increases in order to pay teachers more. Now, one might argue that the voters aren’t informed enough on the issue, but whose task is that to do? If Apple wants to make sure I have the information I need to decide whether or not to buy their products, they get out there and put htat information in my face. Perhaps the teachers should be embarking on an advertising campaign to educumate the masses on what they are missing. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/69 "2011-03-14T01:26:41Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I think we also have to look at it from the consumer side of things, too. People pay for what they value, and if they think higher teacher pay is worth it, then they’ll pay. And I don’t mean answering “yes” to a poll asking if teachers should be paid more. I mean voting at the polls for tax increases in order to pay teachers more. > > Now, one might argue that the voters aren’t informed enough on the issue, but whose task is that to do? If Apple wants to make sure I have the information I need to decide whether or not to buy their products, they get out there and put htat information in my face. Perhaps the teachers should be embarking on an advertising campaign to educumate the masses on what they are missing. Absolutely! We’ll organize somehow to make our case. Maybe join in a union, if they’re legal in our state. Hell, maybe random members of the profession will even go on messageboards and make posts arguing that higher pay for teachers will be beneficial :). But this is different from Apple, because it’s not a free market: it’s essentially a government monopoly (with weird but minor exceptions in the marketplace in the form of private schools). Your proposal is a little bit like saying, “Army: want better equipment? How about an advertising campaign to the public?” only imagine that Republican politicians went apoplectic any time the military brass spent any portion of their budget on making materials asking for more money. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/70 "2011-03-14T01:36:48Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Absolutely! We’ll organize somehow to make our case. Maybe join in a union, if they’re legal in our state. Hell, maybe random members of the profession will even go on messageboards and make posts arguing that higher pay for teachers will be beneficial :). Sounds like a plan! > [@](#): > > But this is different from Apple, because it’s not a free market: it’s essentially a government monopoly (with weird but minor exceptions in the marketplace in the form of private schools). Your proposal is a little bit like saying, “Army: want better equipment? How about an advertising campaign to the public?” only imagine that Republican politicians went apoplectic any time the military brass spent any portion of their budget on making materials asking for more money. Well, the military does lobby Congress for what it thinks it needs. Of course, the teachers would need to do that at the state or local level. Still, aren’t private school teachers paid less, on average, than public school teachers? What does that tell you/ ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/71 "2011-03-14T01:40:22Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Well, the military does lobby Congress for what it thinks it needs. Of course, the teachers would need to do that at the state or local level. Still, aren’t private school teachers paid less, on average, than public school teachers? What does that tell you/ 1. They have lower standards to enter the field (no certification) and so have more competition for fewer slots, driving down wages. 2. They have vastly improved working conditions/work loads. I’ve said throughout this thread it’s not that the pay is objectively too low. It’s that the pay is too low for the conditions. If you want better teachers, fix one or the other. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/72 "2011-03-14T01:42:33Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Well, the military does lobby Congress for what it thinks it needs. Yes they do–because they’re allowed to, and because they have a budget that allows them to. And they go to Congress, not to the public at large. A local school official made a videotape asking state legislators not to cut school funding, and now the state legislature is investigating him for misusing government funds. And it happens at the highest levels: individual soldiers aren’t expected to go out there and lobby Congress. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/73 "2011-03-14T02:42:51Z")
There are also structural issues about the way we finance schools in the US that probably are making the issue more intractable. The area where I live has excellent schools even though, theoretically, CA spreads educational funds evenly around the state. You can’t convince me that these teachers are underpaid, because the product is outstanding. Still, you aren’t going to be able prevent more affluent people from pumping their funds into the local schools, and then having less interest in forking out money for school districts 500 miles away. Anyone watching _60 Minutes_? They just started a story about a school that pays teachers $125k/year. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/74 "2011-03-14T03:31:46Z")
I think this whole debate is based on a faulty premise. I don’t buy the idea that our education system is markedly worse these days, or that teachers were better in days past because women had few other options. Even assuming they were more talented and capable, that doesn’t mean we will actually get better results solely as a result of having more intellectually gifted teachers. It does not follow that a neurosurgeon would be a better teacher. Furthermore, there doesn’t seem to be any [evidence](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/22/think_again_education?page=0,0) that our education system was any better relative other industrialized countries back then. > [@](#): > > Even at the height of U.S. geopolitical dominance and economic strength, American students were never anywhere near the head of the class. In 1958, Congress responded to the Sputnik launch by passing the National Defense Education Act, which provided financial support for college students to study math, science, and foreign languages, and was accompanied by intense attention to raising standards in those subjects in American schools. But when the results from the first major international math test came out in 1967, the effort did not seem to have made much of a difference. Japan took first place out of 12 countries, while the United States finished near the bottom. > > By the early 1970s, American students were ranking last among industrialized countries in seven of 19 tests of academic achievement and never made it to first or even second place in any of them. A decade later, “A Nation at Risk,” the landmark 1983 report by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, cited these and other academic failings to buttress its stark claim that “if an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” Even though things look bleak sometimes, I think its worth noting that people go to school for longer, study a broader variety of things, and often tackle far more complex problems than they did years ago. It makes good print to highlight the failing schools in this country, but it doesn’t reflect the reality that people are smarter than they have ever been. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/75 "2011-03-14T04:06:37Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Isn’t any shortage of anything caused by this? I mean, if you are asking “are there enough people holding teaching certificates to fill demand?”, I have no idea. I suspect there are, since people often leave teaching to go into other fields. My point is more specific. It’s not a about a lack of certified teachers (we have extras here in the northeast), but a lack in certain regions of the country. And a lack of desire by teachers to go to those regions. I can think of several reasons why teachers don’t want to go to some regions. I don’t think any rational, intelligent person wants to go to some of these regions. In other cases, the pay may be too low. I know of one case where a teacher is not willing to leave a very small area no matter what. I’m just trying to put together the pieces of this problem, and looking for information that would help. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/76 "2011-03-14T05:24:08Z")
> [@MsRobyn](#): > > …In modern times, however, many families have two or more workers, so they need safe, reliable child care during the summer. And, of course, the first few weeks to a month of school are spent playing catch-up to review the material the kids forgot over the summer, which is a waste of instructional time. So having year-round school with two-week breaks every few months makes a lot more sense. Of course some of us depended on being able to work full-time during the summer in high school. Still, I’d agree with shortening summer vacation (say from 12 wks to 6-8) and having breaks of a week or two between marking periods. ---
**Author:** ![erez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47c2d/32.png) [@erez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erez)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/77 "2011-03-14T06:52:44Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Just on my required hours at school, I put in 1600 hours a year (~200 days, counting workdays and pre- and post-year work, with a 7:30-3:30 schedule mandated). Yeah, that’s 20% less than the average working year, certainly–but my work week is usually about 48 hours a week, which brings it very close to the national average (1920 hours vs. 2000 hours, or 96% of a full-time-with-2-weeks-paid). Your anecdotal evidence is meaningless. This subject has been studied and the results are well known. Even during weeks when teachers do work, they don’t work more. “Teachers employed full time worked 24 fewer minutes per weekday and 42 fewer minutes per Saturday than other full-time professionals. On Sundays, teachers and other professionals worked, on average, about the same amount of time. These estimates are averages for all teachers and other professionals who did some work in the week prior to their interview.” ([http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf](http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf)) I would support paying teachers more, but only if it becomes easier to fire bad teachers and if they are paid based on performance, not seniority. Also, the retirement age shouldn’t be lower than for other professions. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/78 "2011-03-14T07:34:33Z")
Would paying cops more result in less crime??? No. :rolleyes: Of course not. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I think this gets cause and effect mixed up, though. When you’re dealing with a kid in poverty, they’re likely to need free/reduced lunch, busing, and quite possibly the assistance of a social worker and one-on-one remediators or tutors. I’ve heard a stat saying it costs between 20-50% more to educate a kid in poverty than it does to educate a kid from a middle-class background, due to the extra services needed. So it seems likely that the most impoverished schools are both worst-performing and most expensive, not that more money leads to worse results. How about that kid in poverty never being born in the first place? Sorry to reveal a “horrible truth” to some of you, but that is step one in the solution. If the poorer families of our culture were not overwhelming our schools with their bastard children there would be more money to spend (at current budget levels or less) on all education without cuts or tax increases. ---
**Author:** ![Snifit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5fc32e/32.png) [@Snifit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snifit)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/79 "2011-03-14T07:52:12Z")
Regarding an increase in teacher wages leading to a bankrupt government: NPR had a [podcast](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/01/25/133215055/the-tuesday-podcast-how-much-is-a-good-teacher-worth) recently called “How Much is a Good Teacher Worth?” Economist Eric Hanushek makes the argument that an effective teacher has a profound positive effect on the earning potential of his students. (And conversely, an exceptionally ineffective teacher has a profound negative effect on the earning potential of his students.) I don’t have access to his published data, but here is a snip from [the abstract](http://www.nber.org/papers/w16606.pdf): > [@](#): > > A teacher one standard deviation above the mean effectiveness annually generates marginal gains of over $400,000 in present value of student future earnings with a class size of 20 and proportionately higher with larger class sizes. Alternatively, replacing the bottom 5-8 percent of teachers with average teachers could move the U.S. near the top of international math and science rankings with a present value of $100 trillion. I believe his argument is based the recent study that showed an effective teacher will generally advance her students 1.5 grade levels, whereas an ineffective teacher will generally only advance her students 0.5 grade levels. I assume he correlates grades with earning potential to make his conclusions about the monetary worth of an effective teacher, but I can’t recall exactly as I listened to the podcast a few weeks ago. ---
**Author:** ![Snifit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5fc32e/32.png) [@Snifit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snifit)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532/80 "2011-03-14T08:09:15Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > At a job fair I went to in 2007, the line for interviewing for a single district’s elementary ed positions was over an hour long. Nearby a neighboring district had a sign saying: “High school math teachers: $2500 signing bonus!” The principal manning that table was so bored :). Would that I had gotten my B.Ed. a few years earlier. ☹ I’m looking to teach high school math, and my city-wide school board wouldn’t even hire me on to the substitute list. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-teachers-more/574532.md?page=5)