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SAM
T. HARPER Will Raising Teachers' Salaries Improve Teaching? February 15, 2003 |
Will raising teachers' salaries improve teaching?
"In recent years, a considerable portion of the controversy
about public education has centered on teachers. There has been
anger and unhappiness on both sides. We read in the newspapers
that not only do teachers feel they are underpaid, the best ones
are voting with their feet and leaving the profession."
Most of us recognize the above claim. We have heard it in recent
years many times. In fact, I came across it in a book written in
1988. I suspect it was first spoken twenty-five years before then.
And maybe even twenty-five years before then; and maybe even
.
What has made me think of this issue is a recent Tennessee
Supreme Court ruling that stated the state must "equalize"
teachers' pay from district to district. A teacher in rural
Tennessee has to be paid the same as an equally qualified teacher
in an urban school, regardless of the obvious effects of cost of
living issues.
Behind this ruling is the assumption that more pay creates better
results.
I know teachers' compensation is a "third rail" issue
but I believe there is another paradigm to consider other than
"more money produces better teachers". (Interestingly,
in "The Annual Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward
the Public Schools" from 1970-2001, "Low teacher pay"
has never registered with more than six percent of those polled
as "a major problem facing the local public schools.")
In his excellent book on unintended consequences in current
public policy thinking, "In Pursuit of Happiness and Good
Government", Charles Murray makes a strong case that
increasing teachers' salaries to levels found in other
professions actually lowers the quality of teaching. Let me
explain.
First, he challenges the assumption that better teacher pay
produces better education results. Look at the below chart:
Average teacher compensation (note: average includes both private
and public teachers; private school teachers typically make ~30%
less than public school teachers) versus the average full time US
worker.
Source: National Center for
Education Statistics, US Dept. of Education
Teachers have clearly held a lead in average compensation over
the average US full time employee since the early 1950's. So they
have not been treated like "second class citizens" or
have been forced to live in squalor. Murray concludes "We
have raised teachers' salaries for years without getting better
teachers."
Murray goes even farther in his paradigm shift when he examines
what would happen if teachers' salaries WERE raised appreciably.
Let's say the average compensation in the year 2000 was $60,000
instead of the $45,000 shown above. Now many more people who
would not be teachers at $45,000 would now join the teaching
ranks. Most of them, therefore, would be in it for the money. But
is teaching a money driven profession?
"Teaching children is one of the most intrinsically
rewarding occupations that society has to offer. {From my work as
a management consultant, I hear many employees and managers
complain about the lack [not of pay] but of intrinsic rewards/psyche
income from their jobs.} Teaching remains one of the relatively
few occupations that can have the same rich rewards (for people
who are drawn to it) that it has always possessed."
So raising teacher salaries appreciably creates a large number of
new teachers "in it for the money"; in one of the few
professions left that has high psyche income. As Murray points
out: Do we want teachers who are "in it for the money"
or teachers who love kids and teaching?
Another interesting point he pursues is the effect of large
teacher raises on current teachers. More teachers are currently
in the profession for the psychic income than would be after
large raises. Due to human nature, the raises easily convert many
of the psyche income teachers into "in it for the money"
teachers. So education suffers even more.
Raising teacher salaries is often a Democrat battle cry during
campaigns. Of course after the election they do nothing about it.
The reality of suffocating tax rates and runaway bureaucracies
puts teacher salary increases on the back burner.
Murray's point is that salary is not the issue. "The task in
solving the teacher problem is not to engineer solutions (liberal
talk for spending more money) but to strip away the impediments
to behaviors that would normally occur." Teaching carries
high levels of psychic income and by not focusing our public
policy on supporting those psychic income issues we have failed
our education systems. In future columns I will address the
sources of psychic income: safety, community respect, kids
wanting to learn, etc.
Sam T. Harper graduated cum laude from Vanderbilt University. Following a tour in the US Navy and a stint as Operations Manager at Roadway Express, he earned his MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He was a contributor to In Search of Excellence, the best selling business book of all time. Sam was also Manager, Economic Planning & Analysis at Sohio Petroleum, Partner and Chief Financial Officer at investment-banking firm Bridgemere Capital, and Chief Operating Officer of the Institute for Contemporary Studies, a San Francisco Bay Area-based think tank and international publishing firm that specializes in self-governing and entrepreneurial public policy. Sam was a chairman of the San Francisco Republican party and the GOP co-host of California Political Review on KALW-FM in San Francisco. Sam is currently the co-owner of the Tennessee based Institute for Local Effectiveness Training, LLC a management consulting, training, and coaching firm.