{"id":22139,"date":"2011-11-10T10:55:11","date_gmt":"2011-11-10T15:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/?p=22139"},"modified":"2011-11-10T10:30:34","modified_gmt":"2011-11-10T16:30:34","slug":"public-school-teachers-and-their-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/11\/10\/public-school-teachers-and-their-pay\/","title":{"rendered":"Public School Teachers and their Pay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

From The Atlantic by Jordan Weissmann<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

What do you think?<\/strong><\/a> I say they are underpaid in the cities, well paid in the suburbs, and woefully underpaid in the smaller communities outside the suburbs, that is, in more rural communities.<\/p>\n

American public school teachers are paid far more than their smarts are worth.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the provocative conclusion of a new\u00a0study<\/a> from two high-profile conservative think tanks. Researchers from the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute found that public school teachers take home total compensation that\u2019s 52% higher than \u201cfair market levels\u201d for professionals with similar cognitive abilities.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, their findings have riled the education world. \u201cNo, we do not agree that teachers are overpaid,\u201d public school reform advocate Michelle Rhee told\u00a0Politico<\/em>. \u201cUnder the status quo in most school districts, good classroom teachers are not only undervalued in pay, but as professionals generally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, this isn\u2019t the final word on teacher pay. It\u2019s just the latest word. Big sweeping statements about teachers being overpaid or underpaid are perennial in the think tank world. Here are four of the biggest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This from Heritage AEI:<\/p>\n

Heritage-AEI:<\/span> <\/strong>Overpaid! Teachers earn too much for their level of smarts.
\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Study<\/strong>:\u00a0The Heritage-AEI study<\/a> seeks to correct what it sees as a major flaw in past assessments of teacher pay. Ordinarily, researchers like compare teacher salaries to what other similarly educated professionals make. Jason Richwine and Andrew Briggs think that\u2019s foolish. Years of research has shown that education degrees are among the least challenging, they write, and higher levels of education don\u2019t necessarily correlate to better teacher performance. It\u2019s more effective to compare teachers to other professionals who have the same objective cognitive abilities. In other words, break out the IQ tests.<\/p>\n

The Conclusions<\/strong>: What they find isn\u2019t exactly complimentary. \u201cAlthough teachers as a group score above the national average on intelligence tests, their scores fall below the average for other college graduates,\u201d the pair write. Teachers, they find, also score lower on their SAT and ACT. Finally, they break out data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to analyze the effects of both education and IQ. When education is taken into account, teachers salaries are more than 12% lower than their peers. But when measured based on cognitive skills, the salary gap evaporates. Once you factor in benefits such as retiree healthcare and pensions, total teacher compensation starts to eclipse what others in their cohort make. To top it all off, teachers tend to take a pay cut when they move to other professions.<\/p>\n

The Big Criticisms<\/strong>: Richwine and Briggs paint with a broad brush, lumping teachers together from across geographic regions and subject area expertise. It may be that math and science teachers are underpaid while gym teachers are making a steal. But their study can\u2019t tell. The two researchers acknowledge that problem. Of course, there\u2019s also some controversy about whether \u201cobjective measures of cognitive ability\u201d such as IQ and the SAT scores are really all that objective. But let\u2019s not get into the weeds.<\/p>\n

Even if America\u2019s best and the brightest aren\u2019t becoming teachers, Richwine and Briggs\u2019 concede that there\u2019s a good argument for paying teachers more. As they note: \u201cWe have shown that existing teachers are paid above market rates, but recruiting highly effective teachers into the profession may require present levels of compensation or perhaps even higher levels.\u201d In the end, they just want to see pay-for-performance policies. That puts them on the same wavelength as, well, Michelle Rhee.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From The Atlantic by Jordan Weissmann: What do you think? I say they are underpaid in the cities, well paid in the suburbs, and woefully underpaid in the smaller communities outside the suburbs, that is, in more rural communities. American public school teachers are paid far more than their smarts are worth. That\u2019s the provocative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nPublic School Teachers and their Pay<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"From The Atlantic by Jordan Weissmann: What do you think? 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