To Surly, With Love: Are Teachers Overpaid?
Nick Gillespie & Meredith Bragg | March 3, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tck77z3x0I&feature=player_embedded
Public school teachers are at the forefront of protests against state
budget cuts and restrictions on collective bargaining rights in
Wisconsin, New Jersey, Ohio, and elsewhere.
Teachers have a lot to lose. According to Department of Education
statistics, in 2007-2008 (the latest year available), full-time public
school teachers across the country made an average of $53,230 in
"total school-year and summer earned income." That compares favorably
to the $39,690 that private school teachers pulled down.
And when it comes to retirement benefits, public school teachers do
better than average too. According to EducationNext, government
employer contribute the equivalent of 14.6 percent of salary to
retirement benefits for public school teachers. That compares to 10.4
for private-sector professionals.
Those levels of compensation help explain why per-pupil school costs
have risen substantially over the past 50 years. In 1960-61, public
schools spent $2,769 per student, a figure that now totals over
$10,000 in real, inflation-adjusted dollars. Among the things that
threefold-plus increase in spending has purchased are more teachers
per student. In 1960, the student-teacher ratio in public schools was
25.8; it's now at a historic low of 15.
Among the things all that money hasn't bought? Parental satisfaction,
for one. Despite public teachers' much-higher salaries, parents with
school-age children in public schools report substantially lower
satisfaction rates than parents with children in private schools. In
2007, the percentage of parents with children in assigned public
schools who were "very satisfied" with the institution was 52 percent.
For parents whose children attended public schools of choice, that
figure rose to 62 percent. Parents sending their children to private
schools, whether religious or non-sectarian, were "very satisfied" 79
percent of the time.
It's little wonder that parents with little or no choice report the
lowest-levels of satisfaction ( about 90 percent of K-12 students
attend public schools). Despite all the extra resources devoted to
public school teachers and students, student achievement has been
absolutely flat over the past 40 years. The National Assessment of
Educational Progress is "the largest nationally representative and
continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in
various subject areas." When it comes to 17-year-old students
(effectively, high-school seniors), nothing has changed since
reporting began in the early 1970s. In 1971, 17-year-old students
averaged 285 points (out of 500) in reading. In 2008, that had risen
to 286. For math in 1973, the average score was 304 (out of 500). In
2008, it was 306.
Public school teachers make about $14,000 a year more in straight
salary than private school teachers; when you add in benefits, the gap
widens even more. They teach fewer students than ever before and
taxpayers at all levels spend increasing amounts of money on
education. Yet for all that, the best you can say is that we're
spending more than three times as much money as we were 40 years ago
for exactly the same outcomes.
The National Governors Association says that states are looking at
$175 billion in shortfalls over the next two years. Local governments
are in the red too. As legislators look for places to cut or reduce
spending, there's no question that public school teachers have a lot
to lose in terms of compensation.
And there's no question that, even if there were no budget
emergencies, the nation's public school system is failing to return
much of anything on an ever-growing pile of tax dollars.
"To Surly, With Love" was written and produced by Nick Gillespie and
Meredith Bragg. Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions of all our
videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive automatic
notification when new material goes live.
http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/03/to-surly-with-love-are-teacher
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