Re: When even a Republican can see it....

In article <fp4d73doh6mbigip8e4m1qlbtdt6givsfq@xxxxxxx>,
Joyce Reynolds-Ward <jrw@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

If the public/private administrator to worker pay ratios hold, private
school administrators would be paid obscene amounts (for example,
starting wage for my position is $33,000--starting wage of a school
principal is $75,000, and that's in the public system.)

Checking the Statistical Abstract for 2005, that's a considerably higher
ratio than the average (they don't give figures for starting wages).
Average for principals is about $80,000 (less for elementary, more for
high school), for classroom teachers is about $46,000.

I don't know what your position is, but I would have thought that a
school principal would start being such at a considerably older age and
with more experience than a classroom teacher. If so, comparing starting
wages (or average wages for that matter) exaggerates the difference.

For public schools in general, about 2/3 of expenditure is on salaries,
wages and employee benefits; I don't know how much of that is for
teachers. (2003-4, stat abstract)

a full voucher
system would result in private schools paying about as much as public
schools did in the past--and providing a more attractive working
environment.

You mean, inadequate salary with the thought that dedication to a good
cause was adequate recompense?

Teachers have not been paid adequately in the past or the present for
the degree of responsibility they're expected to bear.

I think members of most professions believe they are overworked and
underpaid. So far as teacher salaries at present, I got into a long
discussion of that online--I don't remember if you were part of it--some
time back.

Teachers in the U.S. make more than the average income, less than the
average income for college educated workers--roughly speaking, their
average is towards the lower end of the distribution for college
graduates. Whether you take that as adequate depends on how you read two
disputable questions:

1. Amount of work. Teachers, at least nominally, have much more vacation
than most other workers, due to the school schedule. When I point this
out, I tend to get the response that they have a lot more to do outside
of working hours, involving class preparation and other things. I don't
know of any easy way of evaluating the overall effect, relative to other
professions.

2. Ability of those who go into the profession. The conventional belief,
at least when I was in college, was that education majors tended to
represent the bottom end of the ability distribution--if you couldn't
make it in something harder you went into education. I don't have good
data on whether that belief was or is correct, but obviously if it is it
would provide one explanation of why teachers' salaries tend towards the
lower end of the distribution for college educated workers.

Nonpecuniary costs and benefits obviously raise additional issues. In
California, teachers get tenure after only a few years of employment, a
benefit available in few other professions. But I don't know how common
that is elsewhere.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
.

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