

The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers - merlin2011
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/The-Case-for-320000-nytimes-1374672440.html?x=0&mod=pf-college-education

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JangoSteve
One of the interesting things they're saying in this article is that you can
tell from test scores when a given kindergarten teacher is very effective, in
that their class will perform well above the average (or at least improve at a
rate well above the average improvement). However, then in junior high to high
school, those test scores then fall back in-line with the average. But then
after that, when the class of people enter adulthood, the difference
resurfaces in the form of higher wages. That seems to beg the question, are
good junior high teachers less effective than good kindergarten teachers (or
even effective at all)? We need more data!

~~~
derefr
Perhaps the material taught/tested in high school just isn't correlated as
highly with success in the workplace as a good early-childhood education is.

~~~
jbooth
Or maybe the lessons that are most important in high school aren't measured
effectively on the test. They could be intangibles that are untestable, or the
tests could just be flawed.

Of the middle/HS teachers I know, those in nice school districts regard tests
as a pain and a distraction, but the ones from poor school districts _hate_
them. Apparently the way the tests are written, your typical black or ESL
city-dweller could understand the material extremely well but the questions
are very much in white suburban english, and reference cultural context that
they're unlikely to understand. Add in a little intimidation and mistrust, and
you've got test results that are basically irrelevant to whether the kids know
the material.

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sethg
My understanding is that a lot of good teachers would rather have more
autonomy in their jobs than more money.

My son’s first preschool teacher was superb, because she _paid enough
attention_ to the kids to know when _not_ to follow the Ph.D.-approved paint-
by-numbers curriculum that was mandated by the school. Her contract didn’t get
renewed (since she was a new teacher, she had no kind of tenure protection).

~~~
brianm
Speaking as an ex-teacher, more money is also direly needed.

~~~
sethg
I suspect that the two are related. If the people setting your salary see you
as a cog who is expected to do precisely what you’re told, they will see your
labor as cheap.

~~~
yummyfajitas
It's been shown that the most effective teaching method is to treat teachers
as cogs and provide them with scripts for teaching their classes.

<http://www.jefflindsay.com/EducData.shtml>

The unions oppose it in spite of the proven educational benefits. They don't
seem to have an objection to "whole language", though.

~~~
sethg
From my observations, I would surmise that in a school of _mediocre_ teachers,
the direct approach is probably better; a more flexible approach to lesson
planning would just gives those teachers an excuse to throw up their hands and
say “follow your bliss, kids”. But the constraints that provide necessary
support to mediocre teachers are a straitjacket to the good teachers... thus
encouraging good teachers to abandon the field.

When I was an ed student, the guy who taught the reading-methods class said
that direct instruction was absolutely an important part of a whole-language
classroom; if you see that kids in your class are having trouble reading words
with “th”, then you are doing nothing wrong in the sight of God and Dewey by
taking them aside and presenting them with a lesson on “th”. But a teacher in
a whole-language class _who isn’t paying attention_ will not realize what kids
are getting stuck on and therefore will just assume that everything is going
to work out, somehow, eventually. A good teacher in a class that is all
phonics phonics phonics, on the other hand, will be aware that a lot of the
phonics lessons are wasting everyone’s time on unnecessary drills.

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roel_v
I don't believe the conclusion that excellent teachers should be paid 320k per
child can follow from the premises in the article. You don't pay for the full
value something adds. Otherwise, by definition, you might as well just not buy
it and be in the same position. You pay what the market will bear, which for
publicly-funded teachers is what we pay them now.

~~~
yummyfajitas
The market might even bear less than what we pay now - due to teachers unions,
we can't find out.

~~~
dtegart
Actually the market would probably bear more unevenly. I am sure there are
some teachers which could probably command higher salaries, and some that are
protected by the union and couldn't.

~~~
jbooth
The biggest problem with unions is the last-in, first-out rule. Most union
contracts are structured so that when the municipality has shortfalls and has
to let teachers go (i.e. most municipalities in America over the last few
years), the most recently hired teachers are the first ones to be let go,
regardless of competence. This is doubly damaging to the municipality in
question, because those are the cheapest teachers, so more need to be let go
in order to balance the budget.

But, as I said in the other thread, as long as the teachers' unions are the
only ones sticking up for teachers while the taxpayers want to drop their kids
off at school, drive to work on clean, safe streets, and then bitch and moan
about the nerve of municipal workers actually expecting a paycheck, well.. I'm
sympathetic to the workers, and if the union's the only one standing up for
them, then they're doing more good than harm.

~~~
yummyfajitas
...as long as Dick Cheney is the only one sticking up for military contractors
while the taxpayers want to protect their oil supply and rebuild Iraq, and
then bitch and moan about the nerve of Halliburton to get a no-bid contract at
above market rates, well... I'm sympathetic to the contractors, and if Dick
Cheney is the only one standing up for them, then he is doing more good than
harm.

[edit: not actually defending Cheney, just pointing out flawed logic.]

~~~
jbooth
Ha.

A friend of mine worked for Raytheon right out of school. Really good
paycheck.

At the end of his first couple months, his boss was flabbergasted because he
insisted on actually getting something done every week. He was on the fast
track immediately.

And, by all accounts, Raytheon is significantly _less_ crooked than
Halliburton.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I take it you don't favor giving no-bid military contracts to politically
favored service providers at above-market rates? In that case, why do you
favor doing so in education?

~~~
jbooth
When did you stop beating your wife?

If you'd like to rephrase your question, I'll respond.

EDIT: Ok, I'll respond. For both you and me, a position as a math teacher
would involve taking less money, working harder, and contributing more to
society than we do now. I don't feel the need to kick public servants in the
teeth that you apparently do. If you're outraged by government spending, go
after the big dollars that don't accomplish anything first. Then you can worry
about small dollars for people who do accomplish things.

~~~
yummyfajitas
a) As I already explained to you yesterday, teachers don't work as hard as
other professionals (and certainly less than I do right now):
<http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf>

b) Teacher and other govt employee pay is hardly a small portion of state and
municipal budgets, and the upcoming pension crisis is going to be a huge
problem for the entire country. This is not a small problem.

c) I have criticized other big spending as well (e.g., assorted bailouts).

Also, you seem to have no compunctions against "kicking public servants in the
teeth": <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1557874> You only seem to object
when the "public servants" in question are your political allies.

~~~
jbooth
I object to the blanket characterization of defense contractors as public
servants.

I mean, you wanna complain about crooked unions -- let's take the dollar
figures, multiply by about a million (literally), and there you are with the
defense contractors. And most of them never even deliver a product, or deliver
a crappy unwanted product years late and billions over budget. If teachers
operated like defense contractors, we'd have spent a trillion dollars over the
last 10 years on a system to blast knowledge into kids brains using lasers and
have nothing to show for it.

It's not about political allies. Eisenhower told us the same thing, there's a
republican-approved stance for you.

I mean, geez, I'm all about more efficiency in government spending. I'll go
for the higher dollar figures for things that don't provide anything for the
country first, and get to small dollar figures in the education system about
10th.

Also. I think, not to put too fine a point on it, but you're likely either
ignorant or lying when you claim that you work harder than teachers. You're on
hacker news right now. Teachers have 6 hours of teaching with 3 minute breaks,
followed by curriculum development and grading. I don't care what the study
says, that's more work than the overwhelming majority of office jobs.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_let's take the dollar figures, multiply by about a million (literally), and
there you are with the defense contractors._

A quick googling shows that military and educational spending are on par with
each other (about $500B). [edit: circa 2004-2005]

[http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/index.html#not...](http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/index.html#note)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Defense_Spending_Tren...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Defense_Spending_Trends.png)

But I guess the department of education is lying just like the BLS?

 _I'll go for the higher dollar figures for things that don't provide anything
for the country first, and get to small dollar figures in the education system
about 10th._

Really? It looks to me as if you are _defending_ wasteful spending on
education rather than simply criticizing it less than other wasteful spending:
"...as long as the teachers' unions are the only ones sticking up for
teachers...they're doing _more good than harm_."

 _I don't care what the study says..._

That seems to be the trend here.

~~~
jbooth
500 is the new 700? We definitely spend over 500 billion on the military.

For the last 8 years or so, national education spending has been pretty much
flatlined, or even declining in real dollars. Military spending has been
skyrocketing.

And yes. I don't believe kicking teachers in the teeth is a good idea. If you
have a math degree, you can get paid twice as much to work on some non-
functional crap for a defense contractor as you can as a teacher. That's not
the same thing. Defense is far more bloated. Meanwhile, we're sliding on every
international metric of education. I'd suggest reading Kristof today if you
want some neat statistics.

~~~
yummyfajitas
The data I found was from 2004-2005. For 2008 (the last year for which full
data is available), the relevant numbers are $730B defence, $860B education.
You could have discovered this yourself if you spent even a minute or two
googling.

[http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_education_spending_20...](http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_education_spending_20.html)

It would appear that education is even more bloated than the military. As you
say, "we're sliding on every international metric of education," but the
military is still #1 (by a wide margin). Abiding by your philosophy of
targeting the big ticket items for criticism and leaving the smaller ticket
items alone, will you now focus your critiques on education and disregard the
military?

~~~
jbooth
<http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/breakdown>

<http://www.christopherchantrill.com/>

<http://www.deathandtaxesposter.com/>

[http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=711](http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=711)

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icono
There's a point where diminishing returns sets in. My guess is that anything
over 140k a year would result in the same, if not, lower test scores. Read the
first chapter of Dan Ariely's book: The Upside of Irrationality. Like so many
best selling authors, he's simply taking research and dumbing it down for
everyone else to consume.

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ZeroGravitas
It's hard to tell from the article but is the quality of kindergarten teachers
being measured by the increase in test scores between entry and exit a year
later? And are the kids grouped so that the teacher is correlated with the
average of their classes future performance, or is it just individuals that do
well (or at least improve most) at kindergarten that are doing well later.

That seems all kinds of dubious to me, but I suppose all research, good or
bad, does once filtered via the media.

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brianbreslin
This makes sense for a variety of reasons: 1\. Kindergarten is the first
formal educational experience most children are exposed to. 2\. The more
experienced/effective the teacher, the better the foundation the students will
develop. 3\. The better the foundation, the better prepared they will be at
every level later on.

The middle school issue could use more details as to the variables in play
there.

~~~
hugh3
If early learning experiences are that important, then surely the best
investment you can make in your child's future is to have one parent stay home
and teach them stuff for the first five years of their lives before they get
shipped off to kindergarten, rather than shipping 'em off to daycare while
both parents work?

I'm shocked by the number of children who show up to kindergarten unable to
read.

~~~
brianbreslin
I'd argue we need to ship them off to pre-k programs that emphasize reading
and writing and basic math. socializing the kids a lot at an early age is also
critical.

the large number of kids coming in lacking reading/writing skills could be due
to the parents not feeling comfortable enough to teach them those skills.

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Tichy
Interesting, but not quite satisfying. For example judging a teacher just
based on one random class seems insufficient, even if the class consists of
random students. There might still be random factors that make a class good or
bad, for example some individuals that are trouble makers and infect the whole
class. So one would have to study the performance across several random
classes.

~~~
dgabriel
I believe they did that in this study. It's not a single class, but many
classes.

