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So... what do you think about the salaries of teachers in public schools? Also, I bet bank & oil execs believe they make the world-go-round and add a lot of va

by smtddr 13y ago

So... what do you think about the salaries of teachers in public schools? Also, I bet bank & oil execs believe they make the world-go-round and add a lot of value too. After all, banks & oil touches pretty much all our lives as much as computers do, right?

yetanotherphd 13y ago
Paying teachers more won't magically make them better teachers. I have been told by experts that there is strong evidence that better teachers achieve better results for students. From this it follows that if there were a way to identify potentially good teachers, it would make sense to attract these people by offering higher salaries. But that would involve hiring different people (who would probably demand higher salaries), not paying existing teachers more. The fact is that some people are more valuable than others. Not in an existential sense, but in the sense of how much their labor is worth the market. Senior management are a special case. I think many of them are people with exceptional ability, but it is harder to argue that their wages are "market wages" because they tend to determine their own salaries. There are many market frictions that are particular to the shareholder-manager relationship. These might potentially allow senior management to extract "economic rent" i.e. wages that are beyond the value they produce.
pravda 13y ago
> So... what do you think about the salaries of teachers in public schools? Well, it varies by region. There are some areas where teachers get $1,000/day compensation packages. But they don't really earn that money, they just use state violence to take it from people who earned it.
- vdaniuk 13y ago
  Pravda? I don't think so. Could you please point to proof that there are areas where teachers get $1000/day compensation?
  - pravda 13y ago
    Well...Westchester New York. A tony suburb of NYC. Teachers work about 186 days a year, so the magic number we have to get to is $186K. Let's say the high school gym teacher. Late 30s, been there for 15 years. Base salary, $125K. Health benefit package worth $18K a year. Pension benefits worth maybe $40K a year. He also gets $7K in SS taxes paid, and other assorted taxes we'll ignore. 125+18+40+7 = $190k (I suppose to be fair we must deduct union dues from the total. I have no idea how much union dues are.)

by smtddr 13y ago

yetanotherphd 13y ago

Paying teachers more won't magically make them better teachers. I have been told by experts that there is strong evidence that better teachers achieve better results for students. From this it follows that if there were a way to identify potentially good teachers, it would make sense to attract these people by offering higher salaries. But that would involve hiring different people (who would probably demand higher salaries), not paying existing teachers more. The fact is that some people are more valuable than others. Not in an existential sense, but in the sense of how much their labor is worth the market. Senior management are a special case. I think many of them are people with exceptional ability, but it is harder to argue that their wages are "market wages" because they tend to determine their own salaries. There are many market frictions that are particular to the shareholder-manager relationship. These might potentially allow senior management to extract "economic rent" i.e. wages that are beyond the value they produce.

pravda 13y ago

> So... what do you think about the salaries of teachers in public schools? Well, it varies by region. There are some areas where teachers get $1,000/day compensation packages. But they don't really earn that money, they just use state violence to take it from people who earned it.

vdaniuk 13y ago
Pravda? I don't think so. Could you please point to proof that there are areas where teachers get $1000/day compensation?
- pravda 13y ago
  Well...Westchester New York. A tony suburb of NYC. Teachers work about 186 days a year, so the magic number we have to get to is $186K. Let's say the high school gym teacher. Late 30s, been there for 15 years. Base salary, $125K. Health benefit package worth $18K a year. Pension benefits worth maybe $40K a year. He also gets $7K in SS taxes paid, and other assorted taxes we'll ignore. 125+18+40+7 = $190k (I suppose to be fair we must deduct union dues from the total. I have no idea how much union dues are.)