A familiar complaint from teachers and their unions is that their compensation isn't fair or right, and that others whose work is far less "important" are paid more.
To illustrate his point he cites the example of a "semi-literate" football player pulling down $10 million per, while a teacher (presumably fully literate) makes only $30,000. The column, in typical Rosen fashion, keeps getting more absurd from there.
Listen Mike, I don't know what teachers you've been hanging out with, but teachers have a multitude of complaints much more familiar than the one you chose to highlight.
In a recent Harris Interactive Poll, over 40,000 teachers were asked to list their concerns. School reform and student achievement headed the list. Compensation came in number three, but not in the same whiny fashion you suggest.
The last time I checked, concern about the off the charts pay for professional athletes is not the exclusive property of the National Education Association. I bet there are a lot of owners who share our outrage.
Like his smugly sophomoric headline suggests, Rosen goes on to explain to all of us greedy educators why this pay discrepancy exists. We live in a market economy he impatiently states. ". . .the forces of supply and demand make these determinations."
Thanks Mike. But then he offers another illustration. Water is necessary for life and can be had relatively cheaply (tell that to some of your readers in the Sahara, or in Nevada), while diamonds have virtually no practical value yet are worth a fortune. It is all about scarcity.
I understand, but his analogy breaks down. I guess the teachers are like the water, necessary for life, and the diamonds are like the football players, of no value. But this is not analogous to the situation in public education. Teachers aren't the product of education, students are. So wouldn't the water really be like students and the teachers really be like the civil engineers who create the means to deliver the water? Would you like that water delivery system to be ruled by the laws of supply and demand?
Rosen adds fuel to the fire when he says that there is a surplus of teachers waiting to step into one of the 7 million teaching jobs in this country and virtually tens of millions of people who would be capable of taking over a classroom; therefore, since there are precious few people who could be pro quarterbacks, we have a perfectly understandable pay discrepancy.
If this argument were valid CEO's of the largest investment banks should be making approximately the same salary as, say, a high school advanced placement teacher. I mean there must be plenty of MBAs out there just waiting to fill in the next vacancy at Goldman-Sachs and judging by CEOs' performances the last couple of years, there are also tens of millions of us who could step in and screw it up just as badly.
So why doesn't it work that way? BECAUSE PUBLIC SCHOOLS WON'T WORK IF THEY ARE GOVERNED BY THE RULES OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND! Neither will fire departments, police departments, or public works departments. Would anyone really like to live in a society where the fire department sets up charges based on supply and demand? I'm not an economist, but it seems to make sense that for the marketplace to "set the rates" for public education there must be some variability in supply and demand and the ratio between the two. It doesn't work that way in public schools. Educators have no control on demand and even less on supply.
Rosen leaves his argument at this point and sets out to prove that when it comes to pay, teachers have nothing to complain about. In Jefferson County for example, the salary schedule tops out at "more than $81,000." As much as that? I can't imagine why a Ph.D. with over thirty years of professional experience would be displeased with a salary like that.
Yeah, Mike. I know we have good health insurance and a wonderful retirement plan (a plan that Rosen attacks every chance he gets). On the other hand if the most I can look forward to after thirty years is "more than $81,000," I need a great retirement plan. After all, I'll bet my 401K looks piddling compared to Goldman-Sach's compensation package for top executives.
7 comments:
I think I might have to post the comment I wrote in two parts -- it got a little long. Either that or my links were too long and I will have to edit them out.
Here is what I started to write:
I Googled something after reading this, because I was curious about what I could find on the topic. Here were the search terms: "average salaries by profession at 25 years of employment."
One interesting article listed in the results was this one: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/acsnews/86/8609acsnews1.html
"The median salary for all respondents to the 2007 survey as a group paced inflation with a 3.5% increase to $88,000 from the median of $85,000 from the year-earlier survey. The median 2007 salary for bachelor's degree chemists as a group was $68,700. For those with master's degrees it was $80,000 and for Ph.D.s, $96,700. These salaries do not include overtime or bonuses."
Yowza. I shoulda been a chemist.
This one was enlightening, too: http://www.money-zine.com/Career-Development/Finding-a-Job/High-Paying-Careers/
I was really surprised at just how much people can earn at jobs, lol. I have never broken the 42K mark for an annual income, myself, and I am getting scarily closer to retirement. A lot of that has to do with my own choices in life, but choosing education as a career has not exactly moved things along, if having a decent salary was my utmost goal.
I grew up the kid of a teacher and an engineer. I always knew that my mom made less than my dad (exactly how much less I was not sure), but also knew that it seemed my mom worked longer hours and had more work that she brought home in evenings and on weekends. I observed that she seemed more tired when she came home, too. I am certain my dad worked hard as well, but I knew that he worked exclusively with grown ups and this seemed to make a critical difference in his overall demeanor when he was at home. Some of these differences could be attributed to personality differences, for sure. But then I also visited my dad and mom at work when I was young. With my youthful eyes what I saw was that on any given day my dad talked on the phone a lot and made drawings and did a lot of math. I saw that my mom, by comparison, was juggling forty batons what with keeping 30 kids in line (literally, sometimes) and sometimes having to clean up puke in addition to teaching them stuff.
Later, of course, I learned that my dad had a lot of responsibility, too. I learned that he designed structures that people got water from or drove upon and that if something catastrophic were to happen with one of those structures and it was found to be a design flaw, he could be held liable. So he had a lot of responsibility for sure, too.
What I see, though, is that even from childhood it was obvious to me that discrepancies existed for my mom as a teacher compared to other professions. Salary was just *one* of discrepancies, and yes, for her, too, salary was a concern, but it was not so much a concern as the day-to-day work she did with the kids in regards to their learning. It was the same for me when I was actively teaching.
And this is how I finished it:
What your summarization of the Rosen article shows, though, no matter *where* it comes from, is that there is *discrepancy* between the salaries of teachers and that of other professionals! I agree that for him to enclose the entirety of the discrepancy into a supply and demand nutshell is oversimplifying and he's inaccurate in the metaphors he chooses to show his points. It's a really good point you make, too, that certain human services should *not* be set up on a supply and demand schedule. Scary! Rosen really does not get it, does he.
What has happened to people' heads in the past 100 years or so about this all? I mean, once upon a time, a career in teaching was a prestigious and fairly well-paying option. I have heard various theories about why things changed, such as the shift when more and more women started entering the profession in the early 20th Century. I have read that capitalism is to blame. I have read a lot of other theories about how the salary and other discrepancies got started and have been perpetuated through the decades.
One thing that seems really clear to me and that Rosen wants to excuse away and bury his head in lame reasoning about is that education is a human service that is in crisis. When there are concerns about school reform, student achievement, and salary issues all at the forefront, it certainly makes education seem like a needed human service that is limping along.
I think it is. I know I did not stay in public education because I viewed it as limping along. When I was told by the State of Colorado that not only was my Master's in Education and over 10 years of experience in various classrooms not enough to become a licensed teacher in Colorado (that I had already taught teachers in the licensure program was another irony), I would have to go *back* to school for another 20+ credit hours and pay for it out of my own pocket to the tune of $5,000, but that I could still teach while I did it! Gee, thanks.
I decided that the stress I had already experienced in my year of working in a school struggling to educate its kids was not worth more education and money than I had already spent, thankyouverymuch. The whole thing smacked of a "just bend over and then pay us for the experience" event, and I bailed on education, until then trying once again in a Charter School where the MA and experience was enough. That situation had its own problems, though. And then I wound up in France. *cue up the Talking Heads "Once in a Lifetime."* I'm still wondering how I got here. Heh.
Sorry to write a novella here, but these kinds of things make me feel like there is a bee in my bonnet and I find I have a lot to write after reading such as this. Also my novella shows, honestly, that I really am a teacher at heart because I really do care about this stuff and care about teachers and teaching students -- I care about the aims and goals of the profession. I'll probably, one of these days, get dragged into another round of teaching because it kind of just seems to work that way in my life. Until maybe I write that bestselling novel, that is, lol.
I just want to say to any teacher out there reading this: keep up the good fight. You have way more cojones than I do, that is for sure, and I laud you for it!
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I really could use a brush-up English course on the merits of concise writing and editing, eh? :p
I don't think teaching was ever a highly respected and relatively well paying job. Individuals with promise attended schools like Harvard to read law and become movers and shakers. Prospective teachers attended common schools where they were trained to tend to children, or tend to the fields, or tend to our bodies as nurses and the like.
Ironically, it wasn't until the advent of unionism that teachers began to forcefully demand the wages and respect to which they were entitled. Of course, Mike Rosen and the rest would point out the "irony" of unionization breeding professionalism.
I'm here to tell you that without those unions (then as well as now) teachers would be demeaned even more than they are now. Bosses, whether in the private or public sector, don't give away benefits, salary, or respect unless they are forced to do so.
Thanks you for all your terrific comments. They frequently serve to make my day.
In Seattle, starting salaries for teachers at all levels are not enough to meet a family's basic needs according to the cost of living in this city. Denver teacher salaries (per salary.com) seem to be in the same ballpark.
There is a supply-and-demand application to teaching. Starting salaries for lawyers exceed the career-ending salaries for teachers with 30 years of experience. Rosen (who, of all people, would assume that only money drives career choices) should understand that if you want top-flight teachers, you should pay them more than the person would earn as doctor, lawyer, cop, firefighter, manager at McDonald's, garbage collector, psychologist, politician, lobbyist, mortgage broker, real estate agent....
Where would the money come from? From the hundreds of millions wasted in studies, administration, standards, standardized testing, and programs designed to eliminate the freedom teachers should have to actually teach with vigor and inspiration.
Oh cool! More comments than mine! :)
"I don't think teaching was ever a highly respected and relatively well paying job." I was kind of thinking of the old schoolmasters in novels like Jane Austen's, lol. It wasn't the greatest profession back in 19th century Britain, either, but I think more so than now. Yeah, I was going back a ways in history, and thinking of the UK not the US to "go there." It was a bit of a stretch to say "respected and well-paid" perhaps.
What you write here is absolutely true, I think as well: "I'm here to tell you that without those unions (then as well as now) teachers would be demeaned even more than they are now."
I felt very supported by the union when I worked for public ed, and think that they are very necessary.
I'm glad the comments make a difference. :) That warms my heart to know it.
MICHAEL!! There you are. I have missed you, my friend. I am glad you decided to chime in here and put in your two cents, too. And HOO RAH for those two cents. Yes, a lot of money could come from the elimination of those things, huh.
Be well, the both of you. :)
Yeah Mike, I understand your insistance on the equation of better pay equalling better teachers, but at the risk of alluding to myself, I stick to the ideas presented in the previous blog entry (The Great Coffee and Pizza . . .). You didn't become a lawyer because of the money any more than I became a teacher because of the "money."
It is terrific to see you writing more frequently- so much so that I need to take some time to catchup with your blog! Yay!
The argument about teacher pay/worth/importance is a difficult one for me because the entire argument is predicated on the idea that "top-flight" teacher are easily identified, agreed upon universally, certified, packaged and tatooed as such or some shit. Me, I'm not so sure. A top flight teacher is someone who taught me some thing of worth. Is that thing testable? I have my doubts.
I also have no idea what anyone needs more than 80k (or whatever exorbitant amount that was) per year for. Jesus Christ...
Katie Hoffman
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