Last week, The Heritage Foundation’s Jason Richwine and Andrew Biggs addressed why they feel that teachers are overpaid. Since teachers are more likely to hold another job to pay the bills than any other profession in America (according to a study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS study), I disagree.
Below you’ll find some of my responses to Richwine and Biggs:
“A teacher who receives a given salary for nine months of work is clearly better compensated than someone who earns the same salary for a full year’s work.”
- Response: The Organization for Economic and Cooperative Development (OECD) found that American teachers spend more hours per year working than do teachers in any other country (Education at a Glance 2011 - OECD). On paper, teachers work about 7.5 hour days with 30 minute lunch breaks, teach for 180 days, and work for 195 days. However, the reality is that teachers have homework. According to the BLS study, 79 % of American public school teachers begin their workday at 7am and 51% conduct another full day’s worth of work over the weekend. Teachers get 10 weeks off in the summer, in addition to holiday breaks, but this time is often used for professional development workshops, setting up classrooms, adjusting to a change in assignment or grade level, and once again, planning.
“After full accounting, benefits for teachers are shown to be significantly more generous than those paid to employees of large private-sector establishments.”
- Response: Comparing benefits is complex since each state handles (each district as a matter of fact) perks very differently. However, the report did not take these differences into consideration when comparing private and teacher benefits.
“Public school teachers earn less in wages…than non-teachers with the same level of education….The wage gap disappears when both groups are matched on cognitive ability rather than on years of education.”
- Response: Just as in business, where the ability to communicate and network is as valuable as academic ability, effective teachers have abilities that go beyond the SAT scores used by this report. However, testing out this theory would require increasing, not decreasing, teacher salaries. Research into shortages of STEM teachers, for instance, shows that students with higher SAT scores and GPAs head into the higher-paying, private sector jobs available.
“Reducing teacher compensation…could be put toward classroom materials…”
- Response: According to last year’s study by the National School Supply and Equipment Association (NSSEA), “public school teachers in the United States spend more than $1.33 billion on school supplies and instructional materials” (NSSEA – Publications: Industry Reports). On average, teachers spend $552 on supplies per year (currently less with the suffering economy), assuming that the average PTA is spending $936 per class. Teacher spending can actually triple in cases where the PTA does not spend as much. As someone who worked at a school (that didn’t have paper for a period of time) and at a teacher resource store, I have witnessed teachers not even think twice about paying out of pocket to compensate for a lack of resources. Reducing teacher salaries would decrease classroom supplies, since teachers are often the ones that pay for them.
In conclusion, America has grown more and more focused on international tests that compare our students to those of other industrialized countries. We are inspired by these countries’ high math scores, work ethic, and use of technology. This inspiration has spurred reforms such as holding our teachers more accountable, but we have yet to be inspired by their treatment of teachers. According to the OECD’s study, teachers in other industrialized countries make an average of 117% more than American public school teachers and, in Korea, teachers make a whopping 221% more.
If we even have to address whether our teachers are being overpaid, we have failed (at the perception of what the job is and should be) and are far from where we need to be. –Mandy Newport
