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As technology improves we should expect costs to decline. Only if you assume labour isn't the prime mover. Assuming that technology improvements help education
by Locke1689 16y ago
As technology improves we should expect costs to decline.
Only if you assume labour isn't the prime mover. Assuming that technology improvements help education at all (I'm skeptical -- I learned more about logarithms in math by using an abacus than I did using a calculator), we would ideally want education quality to increase, not decrease. Therefore, we should probably assume costs will stay approximately the same percentage over the years.
One thing I've been thinking about lately is education as related to teacher salaries. In general teacher salaries are pretty poor, but they've always been pretty crappy. However, the civil rights movement has had a big impact since the 50's and there's a big difference. Teaching was and is a female dominated profession -- what's interesting are the opportunities for women since the civil rights act. Now, instead of teaching, the brightest women are more likely to hold more prestigious, higher paying jobs that were previously reserved for white men. In effect, it's as though we were placing a restriction on women that said "If you're smart you can work -- but you can only work as a teacher." I'm not sure how much of a difference this makes, but it seems like it could make quite a bit.
- adamc 16y agoIt seems like it would be testable, at least: where do today's teachers stand vis-a-vis their non-teacher classmates? Where did they stand 50 years ago?
- Locke1689 16y agoA very good idea. I'm not sure those statistics exist at the moment.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoIn general teacher salaries are pretty poor,... Yes, but they get great fringe benefits (early retirement, defined benefit pensions) and easy hours. The salaries aren't even that bad if you multiply by (12 months of pay / 9-10 months of work). The underpaid teacher is a myth. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf http://web.missouri.edu/~podgurskym/articles/files/fringe_benefits.pdf http://web.missouri.edu/~podgurskym/articles/files/fringe_be...
- Locke1689 16y agoI guess, but in that case a fringe benefit of my job is that I don't have to deal with shitty kids. ;)
- DanielN 16y agowell for what its worth, a lot of studies suggest that you actually get better teachers if you exchange these "fringe benefits" for higher salaries.
- mattmcknight 16y agoYear-round school also appears to have positive educational effects. (Not that the Unions would care.)
- yummyfajitas 16y ago[citation wanted] Not to be wikipedia-style passive aggressive, I'm just genuinely curious and unfamiliar with these studies.
- DanielN 16y agono direct sources off the top of my head but http://fora.tv/2009/07/05/Transforming_the_System_An_Interview_with_Michelle_Rhee http://fora.tv/2009/07/05/Transforming_the_System_An_Intervi... is a good start
- Avshalom 16y ago"The salaries aren't even that bad if you multiply by (12 months of pay / 9-10 months of work)." Huh, I never thought of that, but you're right. If we just pretend that we pay teachers more than we do, they have great salaries.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoSalary is time traded for money. Teachers trade 10 months for a certain amount of money, while most other professionals trade 12 months for a greater amount of money. The calculation I propose accounts for this.