Public Schools Pay Teachers 50% Above Market, Heritage Analysis Finds

LINK

Far from being underpaid, the typical public-school teacher makes out very well indeed, according to a new report from The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis.

“Assessing the Compensation of Public-School Teachers” concludes that, while some may well be underpaid, the typical public school teacher makes about $1.52 for every dollar made by a private-sector employee with similar skills.

...

That’s the equivalent of a $120 billion overpayment charged to taxpayers each year.

What do you folks think about this?

I've not read the link, yet, but my first reaction is "weasel words".

...the typical public school teacher makes about $1.52
for every dollar made by a private-sector employee with similar skills.

"With similar skills" says absolutely nothing about workloads, hours, or "clientele".

Teaching in the public schools is not equivalent to "the private sector"
It's just worth more.

Not much. Heritage Foundation falls far short of an unbiased source.

They paid for and did their "research" all by their little selves. The resulting article was long on rhetoric and short on statistically valid numbers.

I also watched their little video comparing education to landscaping in a gated community. Wait. What?

So, what else do you have for us?

Poppycock, is what it is.

What market? It seems like they're making the "market" the group of people with the same "cognitive ability" as teachers, without taking into account the actual job.

I'm sorry BigV, but I can't/I refuse to go on thru the link ("News Release") and the "Report", itself.
This is internal to the Heritage Foundation, with authors from HF
staff.
Both (non-peer reviewed) articles are filled with HF assumptions and biases.

When I read the "News Release" and then the Executive Summary of the "Report",
I first thought there was an error in the links.
To wit: compare the "News" with the first paragraphs of the HF Report.

(Underlining is mine)

The teaching profession is crucial to America’s society and economy,
but public-school teachers should receive compensation that
is neither higher nor lower than market rates.

Do teachers currently receive the proper level of compensation?
Standard analytical approaches to this question compare teacher salaries
to the salaries of similarly educated and experienced private-sector workers,
and then add the value of employer contributions toward fringe benefits.
These simple comparisons would indicate that public-school teachers are under-compensated.
However, comparing teachers to non-teachers presents
special challenges not accounted for in the existing literature.

First, formal educational attainment, such as a degree acquired or years of education completed,
is not a good proxy for the earnings potential of school teachers.
Public-school teachers earn less in wages on average than non-teachers
with the same level of education,
but teacher skills generally lag behind those of other workers with similar “paper” qualifications.
<SNIP>

[COLOR="Black"]My reaction is "HF Garbage In/Garbage Out"[/COLOR]

The public school teachers in my town are paid pretty damn well. I would not say they are underpaid. They have a hard job, and I wouldn't want it, but they are paid well. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me right now, but they are paid more than the average household in the USA. Probably close to 50% more. Your town may be different.

Edit: OK, instead of relying on my faulty memory, I looked it up. Average teacher salary here is $69,820. Draw your own conclusions.

Private school teachers can be paid less than public school teachers because everyone would rather be a private school teacher. It's a self-selected group of kids that tends to be much easier to deal with than your average lower-income neighborhood thugs. If you privatized the poor public schools, you'd still have to pay those teachers more to attract them to the job.

I cite this again because everyone in the Cellar should have learned from this history. Saddam did not have WMDs because supporting facts and numbers did not exist. Any claim made without supporting hard facts and numbers is best called bogus. And that is being deplorably polite.

Anything from the Heritage Foundation is immediately taken with plenty of salt. Because the Heritage Foundation is created to promote a political agenda while masquerading as a think tank. Halloween does not justify it.

Let's view this Heritage report. Where are reams of facts and numbers to support their conclusions? Extremists neither need nor want supporting facts. Extremists want to be told what to believe. The Heritage Foundation’s purpose. Its report provides speculated conclusions. Declares them as truth. And orders us to "trust them". Exact same logic also proved Saddam's WMDs. Or did we again forget history?

Remember the 1400 Bible? Something that only the elite were permitted to read. We were too inferior. Were not permitted to read it let alone learn what the Bible was really saying. The elite told us in 1400 what we should believe. An 'evil' Guttenberg had the audacity to publish a Bible in a language we might understand. We are supposed to believe only what we are told to believe.

We have no right to demand facts that created the Heritage's conclusions? We should only believe what we were told to believe and therefore sent almost 5000 American soldiers to a useless death? Same wacko extremist leaders now tell us that teachers are overpaid. We must believe it because the Heritage Foundation says it is true.

I said the president was a liar because numbers for Saddam's WMDs did not exist. All here know how contentious a minority's opinion was because facts with numbers were missing. Moderates and other patriots learn nothing when supporting facts are withheld. Withholding facts means that report is only to tell wacko extremists what to think.

The report provides zero useful facts for any moderate. Another damning reason why that report is politely called wasted bandwidth.

glatt;769216 wrote:

The public school teachers in my town are paid pretty damn well. I would not say they are underpaid. They have a hard job, and I wouldn't want it, but they are paid well. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me right now, but they are paid more than the average household in the USA. Probably close to 50% more. Your town may be different.

Edit: OK, instead of relying on my faulty memory, I looked it up. Average teacher salary here is $69,820. Draw your own conclusions.

I was curious about such a high salary and found this. It seems that the DC area has implemented a fairly revolutionary program to reward and foster good teaching. Alas, the rest of the nation lags far behind. Starting pay for a teacher in New York is $45,000/year.

ok, ok... I think I know what you think now.

I think like you do, that teachers are not overpaid by a factor of fifty percent. I think that's baloney. I also agree that the Heritage Foundation is the mouthpiece of conservative/regressive/evil Dark Side :darth: interests. I have scanned the actual report, and the citations. I think they've cherry picked the data sources to exaggerate the conclusion they'd already reached. I believe the desired result was to plant the seed for a future talking point about how those darn teachers, bloated government teat suckers that they are, they're the friend of our enemy (Obama) and therefore they are your enemy. Arm yourself accordingly. But I digress.

I have significant first hand experience with teachers and their salaries. I was married to one for years, and I've dated several. I have a few in my family and extended family. None of these fine people were living fifty percent more lavishly than the non teachers in the same local population, not by a long shot.

Furthermore, all the teachers I've known work a lot of hours outside the classroom. Plenty of that work involves spending their own money on stuff for the kids in the classroom. I didn't see that factored into any of the calculations in the report under discussion. I'd say a round figure would be 25 to 50 percent of the time in class was spent working outside of class, grading papers, preparing lessons, etc. This is *NOT* a job where you clock in and clock out. Though, there may well be teachers who do that, those are likely the ones that are railed against as poor teachers.

Teachers in Washington have been given pay cuts in the last several budget recalculations. It's sad.

I dunno about high school, but I can tell you that public school grade teachers around here make ~50k/year with a masters degree. ~30k at private schools. What's an MBA make these days?

When Mrs. Z was working at the Catholic school, we figured it up and she was making less than minimum wage when figured dollars/hr.

I haven't even looked at the report, but it must be flawed.

Pete Zicato;769249 wrote:

What's an MBA make these days?

As much as he can get away with which means the sky's the limit.

Pete Zicato;769249 wrote:

but I can tell you that public school grade teachers around here make ~50k/year with a masters degree. ~30k at private schools.

Whether teachers are overpaid is speculation or a hypothesis tempered by significant examples. But Heritage Foundation did what was necessary to make honest or informed discussion impossible. Promoting the same hate and misinformation that Limbaugh uses. Whether teachers are overpaid or not might be discussed. But only after we first eliminate these outright lies and unsubstantiated conclusions intended only to subvert knowledge and intelligent conclusions.

This Heritage Foundation paper demonstrates what extremists do. Invent bogeyman (ie teachers) to promote dissention and their political agenda.

Pete Zicato provided more useful information in one sentence than the Heritage Foundation said in an entire paper. That (and not teacher pay) is, by far, more relevant. Because it says why so many wackos are attacking teacher's pay for political glory.

First year salary plus compensation for an MBA as reported by the Graduate Management Admission Council for different career fields in 2006:
Health Care: $111,477
Finance: $103,122
Consulting: $101,736
Energy/Utilities: $100,263
High Tech: $98,621
Manufacturing: $98,417
Products/Services: $94,558
Non-Profit/Government: $73,125

How many Christmas bonuses are paid to teachers?

$45,000 in NYC is poverty. Was that NY State or Manhattan?


Why did the Heritage Foundation forget to include these numbers? They are not preaching to people educated by teachers. They are preaching to those educated by Limbaugh and a political agenda. Which one teaches facts? And which one teaches hate?

Since the Heritage Foundation has decided to promote their hate as knowledge, then what did Sarah Palin, Eric Cantor, and Ann Coulter say about this?

Locally

xoxoxoBruce;769295 wrote:

Locally

Interesting that Middle-school teachers get more than high school.

Anyone want to speculate as to why?


Oh and

I think they've cherry picked the data sources to exaggerate the conclusion they'd already reached. I believe the desired result was to plant the seed for a future talking point about how those darn teachers, bloated government teat suckers that they are, they're the friend of our enemy (Obama) and therefore they are your enemy.

Ditto.

That is probably a local phenomena. I would guess they have a bunch of older Middle School teachers. Not that they shouldn't be getting a higher rate, everything is harder in middle school. You can see the pre-k numbers, typically those are non-union non-district employees working for a contractor. I do Special Ed at this level and still have to have my Masters and Certification to work with kids who are pretty challenging but at least below my weight class.

Why middle school teachers get paid more?

Middle schoolers=increased stinkiness


It's only fair they get combat pay.

Pfft....our teachers are underpaid, if anything. A good teacher does more than just show up. They are involved with the child's family: phone calls, emails, conferences...all after hours. They work on lesson plans, create ideas to promote learning and participate in school events to increase educational advancement by families and students.

If we want top notch teachers to educate our children, we need to pay them accordingly.

We should learn from Finland. I have a friend who is an orchestra conductor there, with two children in school. I hear a lot about their educational system.

Finland&#8217;s schools weren&#8217;t always so successful. In the 1960s, they were middling at best. In 1971, a government commission concluded that, poor as the nation was in natural resources, it had to modernize its economy and could only do so by first improving its schools. To that end, the government agreed to reduce class size, boost teacher pay, and require that, by 1979, all teachers complete a rigorous master&#8217;s program.


Today, teaching is such a desirable profession that only one in ten applicants to the country&#8217;s eight master&#8217;s programs in education is accepted. In the United States, on the other hand, college graduates may become teachers without earning a master&#8217;s. What&#8217;s more, Finnish teachers earn very competitive salaries: High school teachers with 15 years of experience make 102 percent of what their fellow university graduates do. In the United States, by contrast, they earn just 65 percent.Though, unlike U.S. education reformers, Finnish authorities haven&#8217;t outsourced school management to for-profit or non-profit organizations, implemented merit pay, or ranked teachers and schools according to test results, they&#8217;ve made excellent use of business strategies. They&#8217;ve won the war for talent by making teaching so appealing.

Education Reform-Finland

The quality of my children's education is so important to me that I moved my whole family less than 1 mile so that my youngest could attend an A school vs an F school, after zoning/choice changes last year. And as a result, my blossoming 1st grader is being tested for gifted classes.

As a country, our priorities are all effed up.:mad2:

ZenGum wrote:

Interesting that Middle-school teachers get more than high school.

Anyone want to speculate as to why?

The quip around here is (heard independently from several teachers): "I'd rather die, than teacher junior high."

(junior high = middle school)

ZenGum;769297 wrote:

Interesting that Middle-school teachers get more than high school.

Anyone want to speculate as to why?

...

They are hormon-driven little animals for about 3 years.

In high school, most of the dropouts have dropped out. In middle school, they're still hanging out.

They're comparing them to people with an MBA (?). Wouldn't a better comparison for a fully qualified teacher, with a specialism, be more like a Doctor?

I don't know how it works in the US education system, but it can take 7 years to qualify if you factor in the bachelors, teaching qual and specialisms usually done via part-time module courses whilst also teaching.

Happy Monkey;769405 wrote:

In high school, most of the dropouts have dropped out. In middle school, they're still hanging out.

That always pissed me off that my class rank was x out of the number that graduated. We had something like 550 kids start high school in my class my freshman year, and around 380 graduate senior year. x out of 550 sounds a hell of a lot more impressive than x out of 380. It wasn't the people above me dropping out.

If x was near the top you wouldn't have minded.

I suspect the real overpay comes at the Administrators level.

HungLikeJesus;769433 wrote:

If x was near the top you wouldn't have minded.

Anything greater than 1, and it makes a difference. And it was greater than 1. Can't really remember. somewhere in the 80s.

tw;769264 wrote:

$45,000 in NYC is poverty. Was that NY State or Manhattan?

The site I gleaned that little statistic from didn't say. It has to be New York state. That wage in NYC would force a person to live in the projects.

One thing that has not been addressed here is that teaching (and also librarianship) is considered a woman's job. Traditionally, jobs that are usually filled by women pay much less than jobs which are (or were) considered the pervue of men. We may have come a long way, Baby, but sexism (along with racism) still flourish - sometimes openly - like that guy and his restrictions on who he will teach to shoot in Big Sarge's thread.

DanaC;769416 wrote:

They're comparing them to people with an MBA (?). Wouldn't a better comparison for a fully qualified teacher, with a specialism, be more like a Doctor?

Many states require teachers to obtain a masters degree. A teacher with a masters degree and maybe 25 years experience (from the chart) is paid maybe $90,000. A kid with a masters in business is paid that amount when he starts with zero years experience. We know who created this economic mess. MBAs playing money games. So they deserve more money? Apparently yes according to the Foundation.

The Heritage Foundation all but called teachers evil using propaganda and hearsay. Now we must reduce teacher's pay because wacko extremists say so - without facts or numbers? Not conservatives. Not liberals. Not the nation's best people - the moderates. Only wacko extremists have invented this bogeyman. Blame the overpaid teachers. Since that resulting hate rallies their supporters who tend to be the least educated - ie the tea party.

School board superintendents (ie the top man) typically have doctorates. Earn about $250,000. In Philadelphia where school districts are criticized for being too small, then Philadelphia is criticized for having too many superintendents.

That was a criticism by the Brookings Institute. A think tank that actually does factual analysis. Pennsylvania has too many 'too small' towns, school districts, and state Congressional districts. Therefore it has too many 'top men' administrators. Heritage Foundations, being a political organization, would not discuss that the real problem.

Philadelphia, PA Median Salary Elementary School Teacher $54,783 90th percentile is $74,259

Pennsylvania teacher salaries vs. total education expenditures
Total Expenditures: $19,661,861,370
Teacher Expenditures: $6,517,607,524
Percent Spent on Teachers: 33.15%
from here

Average annual teaching salaries in Pennsylvania are significantly higher than the national average of $48,353 in 2008 and $49,720 in 2009. However, even though the Pennsylvania teaching salaries are on the rise, they are increasing more slowly than the national average. The Pennsylvania teacher salaries&#8217; rate of increase from 2008-2009 was 1.45%, just above half the percentage of the national average increase for teaching salaries in the same year.

from here You can also look up other states on this site.

In PA? This site will tell you what each teacher makes. Pretty scary.

Pennsylvania Highlights
$53960 Avg. Elementary Teacher Salary
$56740 Avg. Secondary Teacher Salary
132% Teacher Salary vs. State Average
15 Weeks vacation per year

Also, Pennsylvania requires that certified teachers at a minimum have a bachelor&#8217;s degree and have completed an approved program of teacher education.
So lets be careful before we start saying they need MBA's or PhD's.

Reciprocity with the following states:
Alabama Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma
Oregon Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Here's my district
http://www.teachersalaryinfo.com/pennsylvania/teacher-salary-in-wallingford-swarthmore-school-district/

classicman;769558 wrote:

Also, Pennsylvania requires that certified teachers at a minimum have a bachelor&#8217;s degree and have completed an approved program of teacher education.
So lets be careful before we start saying they need MBA's or PhD's.

Reciprocity with the following states:
Alabama Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico [COLOR="Red"]New York[/COLOR] North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma
Oregon Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Off the top of my head and under my desk book stack: No reciprocity with New York without a Masters degree, a credit evaluation through BOCES with follow-up coursework, three years teaching experience with mentoring, ongoing continuing education as long as you teach, and completion of testing requirements, since PA uses Praxis and NY uses LAST/ATS-W NYSTCE and specialty tests.

Interesting, thanks. That is certainly not what the site said. It only listed those states. No further specifics.

I suspect the BA only gets you provisional (Level I) certification and new teachers will have to get their Master's degree or equivalent coursework to achieve permanent (Level II) certification... but I don't know that for sure.

I forgot the link for that part. Here it is.

I think you are right. Upon further reading I saw this.

Pennsylvania will accept some teaching credentials from the following states. Contact the Pennsylvania Department of Education to inquire about your specific situation. Please see our interstate reciprocity disclaimer for more information.

Thats not what I think reciprocity means. but hey, I'll not split hairs.

classicman;769558 wrote:

Also, Pennsylvania requires that certified teachers at a minimum have a bachelor’s degree and have completed an approved program of teacher education.
So lets be careful before we start saying they need MBA's or PhD's.

Let's be more careful reading what was written before misrepresenting it. Many stated require masters. For example, New Jersey teachers can get a job only with a bachelors. But are required to obtain a masters after so many years. That requirement was first implemented in the late 1970s.

In a state where so many teachers have a masters, New Jersey has one of the nation's more successful education systems. But the average salary is listed at only $61,000. Teachers with so many years of experience are paid less than an MBA with zero years experience? Did the Heritage Foundation forget to include these numbers by accident?

Nobody said an administrator 'needs' an PhD. But superintendents routinely have PhDs. Please read what was posted before misrepresenting it.

Why does the Heritage Foundation claim teachers are overpaid? Preaching myths to wacko extremists. Making claims devoid of facts or numbers.

The topic is not teacher’s salaries. The topic is how wacko extremists invent bogeymen for political purposes. A trend is obvious. Teachers are not overpaid. Why did the Heritage Foundation decide to paint teaches as greedy and evil? Hate gets the least educated to support wacko extremism.

If the Heritage Foundation was honest, then their paper would have included all those above numbers.

I posted plenty of numbers. I countered that which the Heritage posted and that which you posted incorrectly.
Again, you are incorrect in comparing them ALL to MBA's and as far as NJ. It is FAR easier to get a teaching job with far less credentials in NJ than it is in PA.

Now go crawl back into the basement and leave me out of you little holier than thou
bullshit.

My 7th grade teacher who smacked me across the face, knocking me to the floor, was overpaid. He had his Doctorate.

Did he hit you with his rhythm stick?

classicman;769703 wrote:

Now go crawl back into the basement and leave me out of you little holier than thou
bullshit.

So you are wrong again. Cannot admit it. And again lash out with child like emotion.

I love it.

Classic, just don't. Let it go.

Fun fact: tw also loves olives.

PEEP

Taking Clods advice with one caveat

i.e., not taking Clod's advice.

Clodfobble;769862 wrote:

Classic! Just don't let it go.

--snip.

Could be punctuation blindness.

Clodfobble;769862 wrote:

Classic, just don't. Let it go.

classicman wrote:

Taking Clods advice with one caveat

Undertoad;769896 wrote:

i.e., not taking Clod's advice.

This is just the kind of stuff that teachers have to put up with. You couldn't pay me enough. I'd rather pick lettuce for 12 cents a bushel.

The Heritage Foundation - aka "Why every one except the rich people who fund us is an overpaid peasant who should be happy he or she even has a job"

Who the *** has similar job skills and education to teachers except for teachers?

Excellent question, Rich.

It does baffle me a little the attitude we have to teachers in Britain and America. When we refer to them as 'public servants' or 'public sector workers' we seemingly lump them into the same mental space as traffic wardens, school dinner ladies, and refuse collectors. All of whom do very worthy jobs, but none of whom are equivalents.

These are the people who are educating our children. How can they be so dismissed and disparaged as they are? Years of education and training to be able to do what they do, yet we afford them so little cultural respect. Why?

Maybe because educating our children also sits in the same mental space as raising our children. Those who teach at a higher level have greater status. Not just because they are further along in the system but because by then the job is not 'tainted' by its association with the quintessentially domestic task of raising children. In short, teaching is women's work. Morover it is 'motherly' work. Far greater numbers of women than men teaching school aged children. This is even more the case at primary (kindergarten and elementary) education. We see this as an 'instinctive' task, rather than a highly skilled task requiring years of training.

Fucking depressing sometimes.

Added to that is the current tendency towards anti-intellectualism. We don't like clever people. Too clever by half. Too clever for their own good. Clever clogs.

We want homespun wisdom. Stuff we can get our own heads around. Experts and clever epople mustbe looking down on us. Our knowledge is as valid as theirs, whether we have acquired it through school or made it up as we've gone along. My view counts just as much as theirs. Why should they get special treatment? Why is their opinion given more weight than mine? What are they hiding from us, behind their couched words?

It's a double whammy.

The Heritage Foundation is a self admitted conservative organization, with an agenda.

Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institution—a think tank—whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

I understand that talk. No taxes, personal responsibility and individual freedom comes before social responsibility. If you can't make enough to send your kids to a good school, that's your fault. Why should I have to pay taxes to send your kids to public school? That is really the message.

Heritage is putting out numbers and information to be quoted by our Republican candidates for office. Just calling it like I see it.

No money is too much to pay people to put up with narcissistic, unhygienic, melodramatic, emotionally unstable and stroppy pre-adults all day long.

That is a lot like putting water into a nuclear reactor.

BigV;769239 wrote:

ok, ok... I think I know what you think now.

I think like you do, that teachers are not overpaid by a factor of fifty percent. I think that's baloney. I also agree that the Heritage Foundation is the mouthpiece of conservative/regressive/evil Dark Side :darth: interests.

<baiting>
:corn: