
Pay Teachers More - cwan
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/opinion/13kristof.html?src=twrhp
======
drblast
I just got a part time job teaching college algebra at a school that mostly
teaches nursing and massage therapy. The pay is ok.

The reason I got the job is that the state and regional accreditation boards
require that anyone teaching college level courses must have a Masters degree
and at least 18 graduate credit hours in the subject.

The previous teacher they had to let go has a bachelor's in math. I've got an
M.S. in EE. I sat in on his classes my first few days on the job; he's an
excellent teacher.

So what ended up happening is this school, which can't afford to pay much, now
can't find anyone with an M.S. who's willing to teach algebra full-time.
(surprise, surprise)

While the board has the intention to raise the standard for algebra teachers,
the rules have the opposite effect since they limit so strictly who can teach
that the schools have to hire anyone who meets the criteria whether they're
good or not.

It's not so much the pay but the unbelievable amount of hoops you have to jump
through to teach. I'm sure a lot of smart people would love to teach part-time
if it didn't take years to get certified.

~~~
dp1234
That is one thing I never understood. There are less requirements to teach at
the college level than to teach high school. Most people don't realize that
most college teachers have never actually had any education courses, they just
happen to have attained advanced degrees.

~~~
maxharris
I think that the requirements should be lowered for K-12 teachers.

The reason things got so bad is that there are a lot of education majors that
go into K-12 education because it's easy. These are people that couldn't pass
introductory science courses, let alone teach them to undergraduates. And
there are lots of them, so they try to differentiate between themselves by
getting masters degrees in easy (as opposed to chemistry or physics) fields
such as education. Over time, this must have ossified to the point we are
today, which is that this puffed-up "educational" arms race between teachers
has translated into an institutional requirement.

One of the reasons I didn't respect many of my grade school teachers is that
they didn't actually know anything, and I could tell.

~~~
juiceandjuice
I think one thing that would help is that teachers should actually have a real
degree with a minor in education, instead of the other way around, and that
the pay would incentivize away from teachers just picking communications and
getting away with that.

Imagine if your history teachers had a history degree, your english teachers
had an english degree, your kindergarden teachers had a sociology degree or (a
more rigorous) early childhood development degree, and that the pay was
competitive, if not more than what they would expect otherwise (for english
and history majors, this wouldn't be so hard) Right now, teachers have every
incentive to get in the 5 year Masters program in education and not learn
anything about what they are teaching, but learn how to teach.

~~~
maxharris
I agree with the end you have in mind, but I don't think that legal
requirements should (or could) be used to make it happen. What we're talking
about is inevitable if we separate the government from education completely.

In a free education market, parents would be free to ask a private school's
administration, "What does your math teacher know about math, and what
credentials does he have to prove it?"

------
juiceandjuice
I really, really wanted to teach high school physics. I fell in love with
physics, and I fell in love with my high school physics teachers. I've always
liked kids.

My Sophomore year of high school, I really thought about getting the teaching
physics degree. It was basically a teaching degree with a Physics minor. I
went and talked to my high school physics teacher, and he told me this:

Don't. We went over all the salary benefits, and all the possibilities. I'd be
starting at 29k (Utah), about 4k more than I would make fulltime working at a
grocery store. The max salary was about 55k if you'd been there a while and
had a Masters I believe. We also talked about student loan forgiveness that
comes along with teaching at a Title 1 school.

He told me to do this: Go into physics. Get a real degree, maybe a masters.
Work in physics, make some money, save some money, live your life, etc... He
said I was a smart enough person that I won't have any problem with this
(kind, encouraging words)

He told me after I did this, if I still want to teach, not only would I be in
a better position to teach, but I'd be a better teacher from the real world
experience.

So, someday in the future, I plan to teach. Right now, I have a degree, a job,
and I'm paying off student loans and saving up money. Someday, I'd still love
to teach. I got a taste of it being a TA for a bit in college. I still talk to
this teacher once a year or so.

------
bugsy
Numerous studies show that education majors is the US have among the lowest
composite ACT and LSAT scores of any major.

[http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2006/02/ranking-
sc...](http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2006/02/ranking-school-
smarts-by-major.html)

There have been various explanation for this phenomenon which started in the
1970s and grew since then. Among the most interesting hypotheses is that
traditionally smart women went into teaching as one of the few careers
available to women who did not want to become young mothers and housewives.
But this century, with more opportunities available to women, smart women
become doctors, psychologists, screen writers, etc. Yet teaching is still a
career dominated by women, leaving the less qualified students to take the
available positions.

~~~
akashs
Why would you expect people who want to be teachers to do well on an
admissions test for law school? Engineers do almost as poorly on the GRE
Verbal, but does that mean they're idiots? I understand the LSAT has little to
do with law, but just think of the selection bias of people in that bucket.

~~~
bugsy
That particular one has LSAT, GMAT, and GRE scores, it's a grad school study.
There are also ACT and SAT studies that support it as well. I merely wanted to
call attention to this data, take it for what it is.

[http://www2.ed.gov/admins/tchrqual/learn/preparingteachersco...](http://www2.ed.gov/admins/tchrqual/learn/preparingteachersconference/whitehurst.html)

"[C]ollege students majoring in education have lower SAT and ACT scores than
students majoring in the arts and sciences. For example, among college
graduates who majored in education, 14% had SAT or ACT scores in the top
quartile, compared to 26% who majored in the social sciences, compared to 37%
who majored mathematics/computer science/natural science. In addition, those
who did not prepare to teach but became teachers were much more likely to have
scored in the top quartile (35 percent) than those who prepared to teach and
became teachers (14 percent) (NCES, 2001)."

He is there referencing pg 69 of "National Center for Education Statistics
(2001). The Condition of Education, 2001. Washington, DC: US Department of
Education" found at <http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/2001072.pdf> where you can
see on the chart that education majors are more likely to be in the bottom
quartile of academically qualified students than any other field of study
listed. You also see there is a massive difference between those who teach who
majored in education and those who teach who did not major in education.
Teachers who majored in education are 27% likely to be in the bottom quartile
compared to those who didn't major in education, at 20%. And as previously
cited, 35% of the non-education majors who end up teaching are from the top
quartile whereas only 14% of teachers who majored in education are from the
top quartile academically. You can also see in the chart that the more
academically qualified one is, the more likely they are to abandon teaching as
a career.

I assert that this is all relevant and leave it to the curious reader to
figure for themselves why this might be so.

------
tokenadult
One of the startling factual claims in the article is that there were times in
the United States, and are now places in the world, where lawyers make little
better compensation than schoolteachers. Really? I recall reading in the 1990s
in a book about education policy in the United States that schoolteachers are
more numerous than doctors, lawyers, scientists, and engineers COMBINED. If
there are that many more schoolteachers than doctors and lawyers, it would be
surprising for the schoolteachers to be as well paid. Kristof makes the
interesting point that one way to get teachers more pay, which does seem to be
borne out by international comparisons, is to allow good teachers who can
handle that to teach larger classes. When my wife grew up in Taiwan, the
typical elementary school class size was sixty pupils--an especially small
class might be only fifty.

~~~
alextingle
Why would a lawyer earn more money than a teacher? Only your ingrained
cultural expectations suggest this. Can you strip those out and suggest any
objective reasons that lawyers are worth more? Do they train for longer? Is
their work more important? Do they need better school grades?

~~~
barry-cotter
>Why would a lawyer earn more money than a teacher?

Apart from governemnt lawyers and academics everybody is in private practice
or working for a company. Their employers/clients have them to deal with money
problems. Whoever is close to the money gets to keep some. Also, teachers have
tenure, great pensions, work only 9-10 months a year, and within a few years
of being hired, work under 40 hours a week on average.

>Only your ingrained cultural expectations suggest this. Can you strip those
out and suggest any objective reasons that lawyers are worth more?

If you mean morally, no, it's a value discussion, and those are always boring
because nobody ever convinces anybody. If you're talking about how much their
labour is worth... A good lawyer _makes their client money_ or stops bad
things happening to them. This is a much more valuable service than
childcare/socialisation/education to the people handing out the money.
Children have no money or freedom after all.

>Do they train for longer?

Not relevant

>Is their work more important?

Value judgement; all heat, no light

>Do they need better school grades?

Yes, but that's also not terribly relevant.

~~~
nitrogen
_...work under 40 hours a week on average...._

No teacher I've met works under 40 hours a week. My parents are both teachers,
as well as at least one friend. They may be "on the clock" for less than 40
hours a week, but consistently have to work up to 60 hours a week to satisfy
all of their responsibilities (including meeting with students and parents,
grading assignments, attending meetings, etc).

~~~
brg
Exceptional teachers work more, and provide much more for their students.
However the vast majority of teachers are not exceptional.

As a thought exam think about what are they doing off the clock? Most likely
grading or setting exams. The best and youngest work over their pre-packaged
lesson plans and augment them to the best of their ability. However these are
the best, the top few percent. The scan-tron crew do none of this.

~~~
nitrogen
Accepting that as the case, let's not create policies designed to deal with
the lazy <40hr/wk teachers that negatively affect the exceptional ones.

------
Lost_BiomedE
A friend of the family, an ex-engineer, in retirement decided to teach to give
back to the community. She was teaching the remedial students at the local
high-school. Her students did better on the standard tests than regular
students, her first year.

She was called in, and told to stop making the other teachers look bad or be
fired. She quit.

This same high-school gave the teacher of the year award to which ever teacher
had the most complaints against them...

Unfortunately, when I have told this story to other teachers in different
districts, they have not been surprised.

This is so broken.

~~~
patio11
My quick Rosetta Stone for inexplicable school behavior: assume the goal of
schools is to employ people and that educating students is an industrial
biproduct.

~~~
chrismanfrank
"The goal of any system is to perpetuate the system." Someone smart said that,
but I can't remember who.

------
grandalf
Before you get worked up over this topic, realize that there are some teachers
who are exceptional and others that are quite bad.

The main difference between teaching and other fields is that once a teacher
is hired, it's very unlikely he/she will ever be fired for poor performance.

As a result, many schools contain both a few exceptional teachers and a few
real duds. Sadly, the exceptional teachers are paid based on seniority just
like the duds are, and some duds have been there a long time and are earning
decent salaries and very generous pensions.

I don't think anyone would object to paying exceptional teachers more... the
problem is that we all know of some really horrible, lazy teachers whom it
would be a travesty to pay more.

Sure, if someone waved a wand and doubled teacher salaries, the quality of new
teachers entering the profession would increase, but this would not address
the vast majority of existing teachers.

It's not complicated... the only reason any firm is able to hire and retain
skilled employees is because skill is rewarded compared to mediocrity. This is
not the case for teachers, except in the form of non-monetary rewards (often
exceptional teachers are greatly respected, but this doesn't pay the bills).

As long as we pay teachers based on seniority and other backward measures,
we'll have people who are just not cut out for teaching responsible for
educating our children.

I'm not advocating any sort of across the board measurement of what constitues
success. This should vary by district. The important thing is that just like
any other profession some people should fail to make the cut and should find
work they are better suited for. As it stands, we give these people an
incentive to continue teaching our children. It's no wonder they resort to
trying to strengthen their union... they certainly aren't getting any rewards
from being bad at what they do.

Note, I'm talking about the 20% of teachers who could be considered poor. I'm
not all that concerned about the ones who are average or above average, since
they are not the problem.

The issue of pay is a red herring, btw.

------
kjksf
I think it's interesting to tie this to recent news about Khan Academy.

According to various talks by Sal Khan, many kids used the free videos to
educate themselves about math etc. to a level better than most kids achieve in
a school.

Better eduction, without teachers, for free.

If you look at YouTube's numbers for how often those videos are watched, it's
in tens or hundreds of thousand of views.

I assume that most of those are from kids who watch them to learn something (I
can't fathom a different reason for watching a video on multiplication).

That means at least tens of thousands of kids have been educated - the model
works as a mass education medium.

I think that the current school model is broken for many reasons and lack of
quality teachers is only a small portion of it, so discussing how to rise
quality of teachers by paying them more misses the larger point.

We should be thinking how to fix all of the problems.

It just happens that Khan Academy model is the only realistic way (that I can
see) to actually fix the system. The fix is by inverting the traditional
model. Instead of one person (teacher) lecturing 20+ kids (who all differ in
their current understanding of topic and how quickly they can learn new
information) for an hour and giving homework assignments, the kids learn from
videos, at their own pace, and teacher are there to assist when a kid reaches
a stumbling block.

The above description doesn't fully convey how this works but you can find out
more via videos on <http://khanacademy.org>. Khan Academy is already doing
pilot studies with some schools and results (unsurprisingly to me) are
promising.

~~~
jshen
Some tiny fraction of kids teach themselves and you're implying that teachers
aren't important? That's a non sequitur on a few different levels.

~~~
chrismanfrank
I don't think kj is saying teachers aren't important, just that there might be
a better way. And remember, only a 'tiny fraction' of people were on Facebook
at some point.

~~~
jshen
A better way than teachers? Isn't that saying teachers aren't important? Also,
it seems wrong to come to that conclusion based on some tiny fraction of kids.

------
spoiledtechie
We could pay teachers more if they removed Tenure and Teachers that don't
preform. In what other industry does it pay you for not preforming. I am tired
of thinking you need to throw more money at the problem. You need to remove
the biggest problem. Those that don't preform. If you remove the teachers that
don't preform, not only would you have more money, but have better preforming
students. I am tired of this overall. Its not a money thing. Its a Union
thing. Wisconsin is right to remove the gross weight behind union
negotiations.

~~~
TomOfTTB
Agreed. I have a very conservative, very anti-union family and there's not one
of them who isn't in favor of higher teacher pay as long as it's tied to
performance. So I really don't know who would be against it

~~~
xxpor
What's a fair way of measuring performance though?

~~~
dangoldin
Just because it's difficult to find out doesn't mean we shouldn't try. No
performance system is perfect but by at least trying to figure it out we'll
have a better system than we have now.

I, for one, know which of my prior teachers have been good and which haven't
and most of my classmates would agree. Asking former students may be one idea
although it's a pretty slow feedback cycle. You wouldn't be able to ask
students immediately after the year is over since it would probably be
correlated to the grade they received but years down the line people would
have a pretty good sense of who the good teachers they had were.

One can also have former teachers monitor more as well as have more frequent
observation sessions.

I'm sure there are tons of ideas people have and it's important to choose the
best ones but none of this is going to happen until we make it a point to pay
for performance.

In a way, it's similar to startups - you don't know what the final product is
and you can always improve but it's important to start in order to get the
feedback, learn from it, and iterate on the product.

~~~
nitrogen
One could improve the student evaluations by assigning a heavy bias to the
opinions of students who are highly successful after graduation, correcting
for the economic advantage provided by their families.

------
protomyth
I am a tad bit tired of articles like this that fail to point out private
school teachers are actually paid less than public school teachers. So, if
your doing comparisons of similar positions, government workers are making
more and have better job security.

That said, I would be happy to pay teachers more for a 9 month position if
they had a 4 year BS in Math, Physics, Chemistry, etc and a minor in
Education. The general Education major for 7+ grade teachers is a joke and
doesn't give our students someone who knows the subject.

Paying an English teacher and a Math teacher the same is also wrong. One
degree has a higher market value and we need real Math teachers, not general
Education people with some Math classes. I guess I'm saying I would like the
Education degree removed for a minor or certificate program for High School.

------
yummyfajitas
The article's examples of other countries seem a bit cherrypicked. Finland is
a wild outlier among western nations.

[http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-
abou...](http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa-
scores-usa.html)

Singapore and South Korea do a pretty good job of educating Asian cohorts. But
there are actually several Asian cohorts that do quite a bit better - for
example, Asian Americans in Texas or Connecticut.

[http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-well-do-
above-...](http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-well-do-above-
average-american.html)

So it looks like the huge amounts of respect and pay given to Singaporean and
South Korean teachers aren't really buying a lot in terms of educational
output.

------
forkandwait
My four point plan for decent education:

1\. Eliminate credentialing programs and requirements: complete waste of time
and money, plus they weed out the smart people who can't abide the thought of
wasting 1-2 years of their life.

2\. Eliminate tenure and fire the worst 5% of teachers about whom there is a
consensus that they suck.

3\. Go back to traditional curriculums: lots of homework, lots of
memorization, lots of reading the classics, lots of writing.

4\. Zero tolerance for bad behavior in the classroom --kick them out of
school, make it the police's problem that there are thugs on the street
without babysitters.

This is how good private schools do it.

------
nazgulnarsil
the problem with a publicly subsidized education system and semi-monopolized
teacher system (credentialism) is that market forces are not shaping teaching
compensation. the decision of how much to pay teachers handed down from on
high whether that be from unions, legislation, public policy what have you
will ALWAYS be less efficient than supply and demand.

------
InclinedPlane
Isomorphic alternate: stop padding school payrolls with overpaid,
administrative, non-teaching staff.

------
jaysonelliot
The core message of the column makes perfect sense.

Expensive technology and boutique classrooms don't improve student performance
without great teachers.

Just like a business, you can't buy excellence with furniture and computers -
you can only hire excellence with great people.

I would fully support tripling teacher pay in general, with merit-based
payscales and greater accountability.

Find the money by changing the student-teacher ratio and getting rid of
expensive technology in the schools.

Where would you rather have kids go to school - in a large classroom taught by
Richard Feynman or Bucky Fuller, sitting at wooden desks with a blackboard; or
in a small intimate setting with iPads and Cisco Telepresence systems, but
taught by Gladys from the DMV?

------
maratd
Let's try a thought exercise. If we pay engineers more, we'll get safer
buildings. If we pay police officers more, we'll get safer streets. If we pay
doctors more, we'll get better care. You see how this works? More pay attracts
higher quality individuals, but it's a zero sum game. Those people are coming
from some other industry. So if you'll pay teachers more, you'll have a lower
quality of service elsewhere. That low-quality teacher just became a doctor
and the doctor became a teacher. Not good. I want the best and brightest doing
the most critical work, not babysitting children.

~~~
dangoldin
What about the future generations of doctors who had poor teachers and won't
make good doctors?

I don't think it's a zero sum game - the world changes and different skills
are required at different points. New industries are constantly born that
require a whole new set of people. The population of the world is always in
flux as well - does that mean every additional person has to split the limited
resources?

I think a great teacher is a very leveraged way of taking students and giving
them passions, goals, and skills. Students who've been lucky to have had these
great teachers are the ones who will be passionate and become great in their
chosen fields.

~~~
maxharris
_What about the future generations of doctors who had poor teachers and won't
make good doctors?_

Teachers are not the only source of drive or inspiration to learn. Michael
Faraday had almost no formal education (and he came from a poor family), yet
he rose to become one of the most influential scientists in history.

[He was apprenticed to a bookbinder, which allowed him to read a lot. His
interest in science was inspired by a _book_
([https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Michael_Farad...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Michael_Faraday#cite_note-12)),
not a teacher!]

~~~
dangoldin
Of course not but I think Faraday was an exception and it would be rare for
someone in this day and age to be an innovative scientist without having a
strong academic background. It's hard to break into academia without going to
college and it's hard to go to college without going to school. Of course it's
possible but it's just not easy and without the proper motivation many people
would give up.

Even before Faraday there were tons of self schooled mathematicians who would
just write letters to each other with their problems and solutions but I just
don't know how common that would be these days.

~~~
maxharris
_it's hard to go to college without going to school_

I basically went to college without going to school first. I had a D average
in high school, and something similar in grade school (I was far more
interested in making trouble than anything else!)

I didn't need preparation to go to college (and I went to a midwest public
ivy); all I really needed was a clear idea of why I should do so. That I got
from reading Issac Asimov and Ayn Rand, not from any teacher forcing me to sit
still in their classroom.

------
russorat
it should be "Pay Good Teachers More, Fire Bad Ones"

------
bkaid
I never understand why people get overly emotional about teacher salaries but
not other public positions like fire, police, military, etc. While I empathize
(my mother and 2 sisters are teachers), they do only work 9 months out of the
year, and less than 40 hours per week. And teachers insist on remaining
unionized, basically ensuring bad (non-criminal) teachers can't be fired once
they get tenured after 2-3 years in most states. And the degree needed isn't
difficult or technical to earn compared to laywers, doctors, engineers, etc.
So I think their salaries at their current levels are justified.

~~~
mmaro
Teachers do not work less than 40 hours per week. A ton of time is spent on
grading, prep, helping slow students, school meetings, complying with NCLB
requirements, etc.

~~~
yummyfajitas
According to the BLS, the average full time teacher works slightly less than
40 hours/week (see Table 2). This includes time at the workplace, at home and
at another location.

<http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf>

~~~
jim_h
While the typical office workers averages 40hrs a week in the office, how many
hours are they really productive? If they had to record only the hours that
they're productive at tasks, would it come close to 40hrs?

