Public School Teachers Are Overpaid by 52%
Andrew Biggs (AEI) and Jason Richwine (Heritage) in today's WSJ (link works now):
"In short, combining salaries, fringe benefits and job security, we have calculated that public school teachers receive around 52% more in average compensation than they could earn in the private sector.
The compensation premium is especially relevant today, as states and localities struggle with budget deficits. Restraining the growth of teacher compensation—in particular, pension and retiree health benefits that outstrip what comparable private-sector workers receive—could help balance budgets and perhaps restore school resources lost to rising labor costs. Broader pay reform should give school administrators greater flexibility to reward the best or most-needed teachers with high salaries and benefits, while encouraging the least effective ones to improve or to leave the profession.
Effective reform, however, requires knowing all the facts about teacher pay. Policy makers and the public should not accept at face value that the typical teacher earns far less than he or she would in the private sector. The evidence points to a very different conclusion."
The compensation premium is especially relevant today, as states and localities struggle with budget deficits. Restraining the growth of teacher compensation—in particular, pension and retiree health benefits that outstrip what comparable private-sector workers receive—could help balance budgets and perhaps restore school resources lost to rising labor costs. Broader pay reform should give school administrators greater flexibility to reward the best or most-needed teachers with high salaries and benefits, while encouraging the least effective ones to improve or to leave the profession.
Effective reform, however, requires knowing all the facts about teacher pay. Policy makers and the public should not accept at face value that the typical teacher earns far less than he or she would in the private sector. The evidence points to a very different conclusion."
53 Comments:
It is politically impossible to lower the pay of women to market wages.
Feminists will not allow it.
I'm always humored by these reports of people being overpaid or underpaid by the government vs the private sector.
The only way to tell if a position is overpaid is the number of qualified applicants who want the job when it becomes available. In the case of most government work, the number of qualified applicants greatly exceeds the number of openings.
Job security is rarely considered part of the compensation package in these reports, but it is a huge benefit for most people.
Why should a teacher earn less than a manager?
by Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum (DAVOS)
http://www.forumblog.org/blog/2011/11/why-should-a-teacher-earn-less-than-a-manager.html
Ok, maybe but then the "source" of the research is rather suspect, AEI and Heritage. Are these not the guys who's research supported Ryans 2.5% unemployment, projections in his budget.
The value of tenure is important (as the the scope of retirement benefits -- assuming things don't change). The question is what value you allocate to these benefits.
Just saying!
I make $40,000 a year at a middle sized school after teaching 18 years in Missouri. There is no way the average person with a four year degree is making $20,000 after working for 18 years. My retirement is fully funded by the 14% I pay out of my $40,000 and the matching 14% the school pays. My medical is no better than people in the private sector. I have an engineering degree and worked as an engineer for 3 years and based on what I made then have given up around a half a million dollars in salary to teach. If teaching is such a well paying job why are so many schools struggling to find good teachers? Supply and demand dictates there should be droves of highly qualified people applying for jobs which would increase their pay by 52%.
Originally it was true that teachers made little money; that was why the benefits were there--to make up for the inadequate pay. But over the years, as unions bargained for more and more, this changed. Now the benefits AND the pay exceed many workers' income.
Over the years, also, the union reps always negotiated higher pay scales for older teachers. Starting pay sucked. When the cuts come, the cuts happen to the newer teachers.
That is not to say that newer teachers are necessarily BETTER teachers. Often they have bad attitudes, are slackers, and generally have no true sense of academics.
It doesn't take long for new teachers to figure out what they can get away with as far as assigning work and their own responsibility to evaluate personally their students' work in a hands on way.
Excellent teachers should be paid well. I am always shocked at the number of people who say, "I think teachers should be paid more!" It's become a mantra; what they don't seem to realize is that many teachers are paid very well, have copious time off (much of which they can determine themselves) and need to get their raises, at least in Ohio, from the little old lady taxpayer down the street.
Why should a teacher earn less than a manager? Is a teacher evaluated the same way as a manager, by outcome? Does the manager have union protection? Is EVERYONE a manager in an organization? Is the manager managing an organization that actually MAKES something to sell?
Teachers get their paychecks from taxpayers, not customers.
If a teacher goes into this career for money, he or she needs to get out. It's not for the money.
It's for the children.
Here's more data to back up the "overpaid" condition of public school teachers.
" the "source" of the research is rather suspect, AEI and Heritage"
indeed - the title usually indicates the "usual" suspects these days.
this is just more blame game politics from the right.
"The only way to tell if a position is overpaid is the number of qualified applicants who want the job when it becomes available"...
This is especially true when the definition of 'qualified' is defined down to new depths...
"In the case of most government work, the number of qualified applicants greatly exceeds the number of openings"...
Government work, for people that are either to dumb, to lazy, or to dishonest to hold a real job...
If this were true then schools on average could cut their pay by 50% and still have plenty of teachers to choose from because they would still be offering people on average a much better deal than they could get in the private sector. Since pay isn't close to being total compensation, cutting pay by 50% and leaving all the fringe benefits the same would still make the package significantly better. Surely no one believes we have such an oversupply of quality teachers cutting pay by 50% would not reduce the number of quality teachers in our schools? This study reminds me of the studies which claim women make 75% as much as men for the same work.
The numbers seem about right. Private schools pay less for the results they get and many public school teachers could not get a job in the private sector due to incompetence or bad work habits.
"If teaching is such a well paying job why are so many schools struggling to find good teachers?"
In part because it's impossible to fire the shitty ones.
"..this is just more blame game politics from the right."
Says Larry who just blames it all on the children.
I believe it, but I think part of the issue is that Public schools have a somewhat unreasonable charter in terms of what they have to accept from students, beyond what any reasonable private school would take on. In other words, I think it's not so much that public school teachers are overpaid, it's that they are given hazard pay to deal with a public school environment.
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The article alludes to the fact that the brightest candidates don't always enter the teaching field and that the course of study is rather easy compared to other majors. As a society, don't we want really bright people opting to teach our children? Would lowering teacher compensation attract the best and the brightest? If compensation for teachers is so overwhelmingly wonderful and the degrees so easy to attain, why do more people not choose this path? I think most people know it is an immensely frustrating and unsatisfying profession. None of the benefits, additional salary, or summers off make up for the personal cost of being disrespected by irrational parents and punk kids on a daily basis.
@VangelIV - The way you state "many public school teachers could not get a job in the private sector due to incompetence or bad work habits" makes it sound like a condition unique to public school teachers. This is true for every profession, trade, skill and walk of life. There are incompetence and bad work habits everywhere, not just in the ranks of public schools. Given that this is the baseline, your statement need not be made if not for the purpose of being inflammatory and bringing bias into the discussion.
"Would lowering teacher compensation attract the best and the brightest?"
Do we really need the best and the brightest to teach 2nd graders how to add, subtract, and learn the alphabet?
@Paul - 2nd graders are well past addition, subtraction and the alphabet.
Broll,
Ok, so then multiplication tables and writing in cursive.
While the headline is shocking, I have serious concern regarding the 52% overpaid calculations.
First, some assumptions regarding teachers
-A licensed teacher has a bachelor degree (minimum)
-Teachers work above a 40 hour work week (after-school help, grading papers, PT conference, etc.)
- Average teacher salary is 43k (payscale)
Some assumptions regarding the public sector
- Medium earnings for a person with a bachelors degree is 51k (NCES 2009)
- Average work week for americans is 34.3 hours (bls.gov)
In five minutes, I've created argument to show teachers are underpaid per hour given their counterparts.
The real take-away here is simple. Economists in the US use data to push an agenda, which is the main reason they are wrong most of the time.
@cndavis
Well said! My guess is that AEI and Heritage put a very high value to job security, and the public pension plan. Moreover, I have great doubt that these guys know (or want) to count all items correctly.
As for why teachers are paid less in Private schools its because teaching there is easier -- trouble children get kicked out, no such luxury in public schools. Private school teachers give up salary for "easier" work environment.
However, it is important to note that America's school system is the world's second most expensive (after Luxembourg) and that it generates terrible results...
"Teachers work above a 40 hour work week (after-school help, grading papers, PT conference, etc.)" -- cndavis
For about 8 1/2 months a year.
"Average teacher salary is 43k (payscale)" -- cndavis
Not including benefits. Adding in the value of those benfits would nearly double that.
In less than 5 minutes, I've demonstrated that you don't know what you're talking about.
Biggs and Richwine Wall Street Journal article link.
@Che is Dead - 8.5 months? Where do you get that? 10 months by any reasonable method. You can shave of another 3 weeks of that with additional holiday breaks. Certainly not 8.5 months.
"In five minutes, I've created argument to show teachers are underpaid per hour given their counterpart"...
No you haven't, not even close...
'Medium earnings'?!?!
Do you mean median?
If so you're what median earnings are you comparing them with?...
re: 'Average work week for americans is 34.3 hours'...
Does that include the people in the U6 category?
Something called Teachers Portal has a list by state of teachers' starting and average salaries...
What you failed to mention regarding salaries in the private sector from your CNBC slideshow article is that reason the pay is due to the high pay rates in technical fields such as computer sciences and engineering...
Do public school teachers typically have degrees in those fields?...
"@Che is Dead - 8.5 months? Where do you get that?" -- Broll
180 days/9 months, less two weeks for strikes, demonstrations and trashing their respective state capitols.
@Ranger275 - Your comment is hilarious! You are the perfect example of the average teacher. With an engineering degree, I'll bet you even teach math! If the pay premium is 50%, then without the premium $40,000 becomes $26,667, not $20,000 (26667 * 0.5 = 13333, 26667 + 13333 = 40k). The point is not that $26k is a lot of money, but rather that if you are an engineer who can't do basic math that is probably about what you would be making in the private sector.
rjs: "Why should a teacher earn less than a manager?"
Oh, I don't know, maybe because those who hire them value their contribution less than they do that of managers?
Just guessing here, you understand, but as all value is subjective, and those whose bottom line depends on careful control of inputs, especially labor, I think that makes good sense. Don't you?
By the way, I just wasted 3 minutes of my life reading that nonsense link you provided. Please try to provide meaningful references in the future.
RoadWarrior,
Good catch. It is true that $40,000 isn't 50% more than $20,000but $20,000 is 50% less than $40,000 which is where I started from. Since the article did not say people in the private sector make 50% less you are correct, I should have used the $26,000 (I am a math teacher and shouldn’t have made that mistake!). Which incidentally is less than I made as a new Electrical Engineer in 1983 so even with my silly math mistake I doubt if many Electrical Engineers would go to their 1983 pay in return for the rest of my fringe benefits. I went into the army in 1986 and my starting teaching pay in 1993 was about half of what I would have been making if I had stayed at my Engineering job so my point of making around a half a million dollars less by teaching is still valid.
Using the article’s own figures “a typical public school teacher with a salary of $51,000 would receive another $51,480 in present or future fringe benefits. A worker in private business with the same salary would receive around $22,185 in fringe benefits.” That means if you continued to give the teacher their $51,480 in fringe benefits you could reduce their salary by $51,480-$22,185=$29,295 (maybe if I show my work I won’t make another math error!) which would make their salary $51,000-$29,295= $21,705. Which is more of a reduction than my $40,000 to $20,000. Of course, to still attract people the teaching job would have to have higher compensation so they might need to pay $27,000 which ($27,000+51,000)/($22,185+51,000) would be about 6% higher than private pay. I am skeptical you could teacher salaries from $51,000 to $27,000 and still attract the same quality of people. I apologize for my earlier math error but if teachers on average were compensated 50% more than what they could make in the private sector, average sized schools would be inundated with quality applicants and that is not the case, at least not in Missouri.
Paul,
"If teaching is such a well paying job why are so many schools struggling to find good teachers?"
In part because it's impossible to fire the shitty ones.
Not being able to fire teachers would mean there would not be openings so there would be no struggle to find teachers, good or bad.
This is true for the public sector where you get nice pay and job security even without competence. In the private sector bad teachers get fired.
I'm assuming everyone who believes they can improve their compensation by 50% is making plans to switch to a teaching career. In a free market system that kind of bonus should attract a lot of talented people.
-Teachers work above a 40 hour work week (after-school help, grading papers, PT conference, etc.)
So what? Try the private sector where many slaried people work 50-60 hours and don't get their summers off.
In five minutes, I've created argument to show teachers are underpaid per hour given their counterparts.
You really believe this?
First of all you missed all the vacation and PD days that teachers get, the extra spring break and holidays off, etc. Account for everything and you would be lucky to have the average teacher put in a 30 hour week.
Compare that to the time that private sector workers have to put in to stay competitive. Then look at the accountability and responsibility. Teachers have a huge bureaucracy to bail them out whenever things do not work out as planned. They get to pass on their problems to administrators, guidance councilors, principles, vice principles, social workers, psychologists, and whatever layer of bureaucracy the boards put in. They are not held accountable if they fail to be effective at their jobs. They are not paid on the basis of competence and effectiveness, just time served.
So no, you have not made the case that teachers are underpaid. The system is not market based and the pay scales are set up to overpay for the work being done. If you want to argue that they are fairly paid open up the jobs for competition and give parents a choice about where they send their kids to learn.
Thanks for the responses! I agree with everyone who has replied to me, simply put, I'm making the case that more data is needed to fully make an "overpaid" or "underpaid" claim.
Opinions, such as "teachers probably don't work more than 30 hours a week" are great, however, it would be nice to actually gather those statistics. I think everyone can agree to that.
Broll: "The article alludes to the fact that the brightest candidates don't always enter the teaching field and that the course of study is rather easy compared to other majors. As a society, don't we want really bright people opting to teach our children? Would lowering teacher compensation attract the best and the brightest? If compensation for teachers is so overwhelmingly wonderful and the degrees so easy to attain, why do more people not choose this path? I think most people know it is an immensely frustrating and unsatisfying profession. None of the benefits, additional salary, or summers off make up for the personal cost of being disrespected by irrational parents and punk kids on a daily basis.
That's a perfect argument for choice .
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cndavis: "In five minutes, I've created argument to show teachers are underpaid per hour given their counterparts."
No, in 5 minutes you have made some unsupported assertions.
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Broll: "@Che is Dead - 8.5 months? Where do you get that? 10 months by any reasonable method. You can shave of another 3 weeks of that with additional holiday breaks. Certainly not 8.5 months."
The average school year in the US is 180 days of 6.7hrs each. At 5 days/week, that's 36 weeks, divided by the average 4.35 weeks/mo = 8.3 months. Of course, due to the many breaks and holidays during the year, it takes longer thaan that to complete the 180 days.
I would suggest that your second grade teacher, and perhaps your 3rd grade teacher were overpaid, unless you were an exceptionally poor math student.
Another way to look at this would be average # of hours worked per year. As shown above, school is 180days X 6.7 hrs = 1206 class hrs.
Average hours worked in the US in 2010 was 1778. That's 47% more than average teacher class time. 572 is a lot of hours, when you mention work outside of class time. You should also be aware that many non student activities, such as PT conferences and teacher developement occur on shortened class days, during normal business hours.
ranger275: " I am skeptical you could teacher salaries from $51,000 to $27,000 and still attract the same quality of people. I apologize for my earlier math error but if teachers on average were compensated 50% more than what they could make in the private sector, average sized schools would be inundated with quality applicants and that is not the case, at least not in Missouri."
Even though you aren't an English teacher, you must answer for the typo above. How will our children learn if their teachers write like this? :)
Without dealing with the numbers, let me ask why you are skeptical, when you, yourself, are an example of choosing teaching over a higher paid job elsewhere. What has kept you there for so long?
For me, this is less a question about whether teachers are overpaid or underpaid, and more a question of the role of the Federal taxpayer versus taxpayers at the state level.
If teachers have the political power to screw taxpayers in the state in which the teachers are located, that doesn't bother me so much. But the notion that people in one state have to bail out overpaid teachers unions in another state does infuriate me.
And screwing Federal taxpayers is one of Obama's top priorities.
what are the standard metrics for evaluating teachers ?
how do you know a teacher is "good" or "bad"?
@Ron H - To characterize your work year that way is a bit of a stretch. For anyone with a year round job, you say they would work "12 months a year." By your method you would take 5 days a week x (52 weeks - 2 weeks for vaca) - 10 fed holidays = 240 days or 8 months. Of course it just takes longer to complete the 8 months.
Bottom line, if its such a great deal... if there's SO much "free" time and its so easy to do and you get compensated so wonderfully for it, and all this is common knowledge, why doesn't everyone switch to this career? Heading into picking one's college major, everyone had this choice, yet few pick it. The answer is everyone believes teaching is for chumps, with salaries that max out BELOW what everyone believes that they can earn for themselves in the private sector. Most people then go out to make their millions with their private sector job and fall well short of their aspirations and are then left resentful of the teachers. They only really have themselves to blame.
Ron H.
Where in the world did that word "reduce" go!!!! At the risk of sounding self-serving I got into teaching to "make a difference". My wife was ok with living in a tiny, two bedroom rental in a small Missouri town in the middle of nowhere. We drove a car older than most of my high school students and went into savings most months but we enjoyed the kids and made good friends so we stayed. We didn't have kids of our own. I think I would have had to have found a higher paying job if we had. Free time and job security doesn't feed and clothe kids. I also got into coaching which is addictive and contributing to my not leaving teaching. I doubt if there are enough people willing to take the lower pay like we did to fill our teaching needs. I'm not sure I would do it again if I had it to do over again. Having said that I don't complain about my pay. I get paid what I agreed to work for. If it isn't enough, it is up to me to find a different job which pays more.
ranger275: "I doubt if there are enough people willing to take the lower pay like we did to fill our teaching needs. I'm not sure I would do it again if I had it to do over again. Having said that I don't complain about my pay. I get paid what I agreed to work for. If it isn't enough, it is up to me to find a different job which pays more."
I think you're right that there aren't many who would make the choice you have made, but luckily for the rest of us, there are some, who like you, genuinely wish to make a difference.
Broll: ". For anyone with a year round job, you say they would work "12 months a year." By your method you would take 5 days a week x (52 weeks - 2 weeks for vaca) - 10 fed holidays = 240 days or 8 months. Of course it just takes longer to complete the 8 months."
You really need to learn to do math. You may be a poster child for what's wrong with the public school system in the US.
Your calculation of 240 work days is a lot more than 180 school days, and by your method, teachers only work 6 months a year instead of the 8 1/2 Che & I figured.
It's hard to torture numbers into equating the number of hours a teacher is in class with the number of hours an average US worker works, but keep trying if you like.
"The answer is everyone believes teaching is for chumps, with salaries that max out BELOW what everyone believes that they can earn for themselves in the private sector. Most people then go out to make their millions with their private sector job and fall well short of their aspirations and are then left resentful of the teachers. They only really have themselves to blame."
That's an interesting take. The real answer may be that few chose teaching because there is little, if any, meritocracy in the job. The pay is pretty much the same whether you are good or bad, and there are seldom openings for teachers, as once in, they stay in. It's almost impossible to get rid of a teacher for any reason once they are tenured.
Ron H.,
"That's an interesting take. The real answer may be that few chose teaching because there is little, if any, meritocracy in the job. The pay is pretty much the same whether you are good or bad, and there are seldom openings for teachers, as once in, they stay in. It's almost impossible to get rid of a teacher for any reason once they are tenured."
Wouldn't a profession with 50% higher compensation for everyone instead of just a few attract more people? Excellent teachers make more money than average teachers by getting the better jobs at the better schools so there is some meritocracy. In a normal economy there are plenty of entry level teaching jobs available. I suspect the ability to move up the ladder is similar for teaching and a typical managerial job but I may be wrong.
" It's almost impossible to get rid of a teacher for any reason once they are tenured."
without any standard specifications for what constitutes a "good" teacher or a "bad" teacher the "impossible to get rid of bad" is meaningless and is just more of the anti-teacher, anti-union narrative being blathered these days.
In order to actually be able to determine what constitutes an "acceptable", "good" or "bad" teacher - you have to have some agreed-to standards.
For instance, calling a teacher "bad" because there are 40 students in the class and half were more than one grade level behind is laughable.
On the other hand calling a teacher "good" who has a class of 15 - all of whom are on a college track and ahead of grade level is just as laughable.
You'd need to have a standard criteria for measuring - both the teacher and the students.
the "bad" teacher narrative is just more right-wing blame game that libertarians like Ron here like to stoke the fires with because he basically is opposed to public education anyhow - no matter what the pay or "good/bad" criteria is - he wants education done by the private sector with parents paying directly for the costs per kid.
I teach high school in Georgia. No unions. No COLA. Earnings in real terms will peak at 19 years. 30 years to receive full retirement.
Students attend 180 days per year.
Teachers work 190 days per year.
Private sector 240 days per year(5 days a week, 10 vacation days, 10 holidays.)
This info is not a sercet when people are choosing a career.
Stop whining. There are advantages to teaching and private sector.
Educated people knew this going into college. They made their choices.
Larry,
"You'd need to have a standard criteria for measuring - both the teacher and the students."
Yes, it's soooo garsh darned impossible for a principal to figure out who is a shitty teacher. Unlike every other profession on the planet, it's far too difficult to figure out who is a poor performer, so better to make it almost impossible to fire anyone, no matter how corrupt or incompetent.
.."just more right-wing blame game..."
Just more zero accountability garbage from Larry the pretend pragmatist.
re: principals and rating teachers
that's subjective , not objective and if you assign a teacher 30 kids all below grade level and then fire them for not bringing them to grade level - you've accomplished nothing.
If you don't have a system to measure what the kids have been taught and how far they have progressed over the year - on what basis would you fire a "bad" teacher anyhow?
And how would you rate a private sector teacher if you did not measure what the kids learned?
the "bad" teacher narrative is not about teaching performance.
All it is about is as a wedge to kill teacher unions.... that's all.
the folks who are opposed to the current system don't really give a crap about how to improve our education system because their ultimate goal is to get rid of public education all together.
When the people who want to fire "bad" teachers ALSO tell us how to determine what a bad teacher is - whether they teach in public or private schools I'll put my stock in their advocacy.
The students that are assigned to a teacher play a huge role in what that teacher can accomplish.
If they end up with a large class of kids who are way behind - the chances are high that most kids will fall further behind no matter how "good" the teacher is.
It's like putting a guy on an assembly line and telling him to work twice as hard to produce twice as many cars... you will get crap.
Kids that are behind cannot be taught the same way that kids who are on grade can be taught.
you need smaller class sizes and you need fairly highly skilled people who can determine where and why the kids are behind and then to focus on those areas.
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