Are Teachers under paid?

[Actuary321]

http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Jun/06032...on_w/62595.asp

I like this argument against the study:

Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said Podgursky's "mechanical bean-counting approach" is wrong.
Teaching is complex, demanding work that extends beyond the hours a teacher spends in the classroom, she said.
"It's common sense and common wisdom that they are underpaid for the work they do," Feldman said.

With logic like that, how can she be wrong?

[The Diabolical Biz Markie]

If someone pays it to them, and they voluntarily accept--I say they are paid the right amount. (In fact, since they are unionized...odds are they are overcompensated, once you add in all the terms of their employment).


Here's why, IMHO, they are paid a low (but fair) amount.


1. It doesn't take much skill to be a teacher. (note, I didn't say, "to be a good teacher")
2. There are a LOT of people who want to be teachers
3. A lot of the people willing to be teachers are willing to do it for little money--they either do it for love of doing it, or they don't need money particularly (house wives looking to have a job, but that are financially secure already, young retirees, etc).


This is not the recipe for getting paid a lot. To get paid a lot, you have to

1. Do something few people can do, but for which their is a great demand

or

2. Do something that no one else wants to do (garbage collector, funeral director, lawyer)

[E. Blackadder]

3. form a large, monolithic union

[The Diabolical Biz Markie]

Forming a union is only but so good when your primary negotiating opponent is the gummint. Teachers unions may create a form of monopolist organization, but they are dealing with the gummint who is a monopsonist consumer of teacher services.


Thus, the gummint has at least bargaining parity with the teachers. Two organizations with no profit motive haggling over price. Beautiful.

[fallout]

Teachers in Canada get paid lots more than teachers in the USA. They are on strike a lot too.

My sister is a teacher. She teaches grade 6. She thinks that to get the area of a shape, you need to add up the sides. She marked math tests this way. She argued with me when I told her she was wrong. Poor kids are going to be doing this wrong for life. No actuaries coming out of her class.

She is in a union. She was so happy to get the job. A few months later she was on strike. I guess her exuberance wore off.

I hate unions.

[Paddyboy1]

Teachers are a good example of how paying them more might be worth it in the long run. The job is easy enough to do that I think I could figure it on the drive to work on my first day. I could probably outperform all the other employees and it seems like a fun stress-free job but there's no cash in it. Thats why there are no good teachers. And I think alot of places do pay money comparable to actuaries but they way it is set up it is still hard because of the tenure system to attract talent - I'm not going to take a job in a field where every time I leave my job I have to put in 5 years to get promoted back to my old position.

The "gummint" in this case happens to be the residents of the school district. I can pretty well guarantee you what would happen if our school district's teachers all banded together and said "we get a 15% pay increase next year or none of us come in to work". We'd be on the market for a school district's worth of teachers. Sure, we'd get a large group worried about not being able to find teachers and the kids' education being hurt. But we hold our school district meeting in March and the next year's schoolyear doesn't start till September. Maybe you live in a more easily bullied district than I do, but folks in my town would not be impressed.

[Paddyboy1]

Originally Posted by Shekky Tree

Forming a union is only but so good when your primary negotiating opponent is the gummint. Teachers unions may create a form of monopolist organization, but they are dealing with the gummint who is a monopsonist consumer of teacher services.


Thus, the gummint has at least bargaining parity with the teachers. Two organizations with no profit motive haggling over price. Beautiful.

No profit motive? Clearly a group of teachers has as much profit motive as its members. As for the negotiators themselves, my uncle is one of them, and his company is hired by unions. If they don't produce, the union gets someone else to do the job. They certainly have a profit motive.

[IMHO]

stress-free job

[Harry]

Originally Posted by E. Blackadder

3. form a large, monolithic union

Like an actuarial society for example?