"The path to real reform begins with the truth," stated Education Secretary Arne Duncan in 2009 during an education forum with the Data Quality Campaign. Sec. Duncan, who argues that policymakers should use "data to drive reform," strongly believes that education policy should be "framed by evidence."
We agree.
So why is the secretary reacting so negatively to evidence about teacher compensation? Writing in the Huffington Post on Wednesday, Sec. Duncan shifted from data to emotion, stating that our report on the compensation of public school teachers "insults teachers and demeans the profession."
He is referring to a section of our report showing that traditional skill measures, such as years spent in school or level of degree obtained, do not provide an accurate salary comparison of teachers to non-teachers. Although public school teachers earn less, on average, than similarly credentialed non-teachers, the wage penalty disappears when teachers and non-teachers are compared using objective measures of cognitive ability, as opposed to years of university education.
Our report is a long and detailed analysis of salaries, fringe benefits, and job security for current public school teachers, intended to add to the state of knowledge regarding teacher pay and education policy in general. It is exactly the kind of research Sec. Duncan should find useful to inform the on-going conversation about reforms that would better reward effective teachers. Our results are clear: Teacher salaries are at roughly market levels, but generous fringe benefits and job security push teacher compensation well ahead of comparable private sector workers.
Sec. Duncan leveled two specific charges. First, he writes that we "exaggerated the value of teacher compensation by comparing the retirement benefits of the small minority of teachers who stay in the classroom for 30 years, rather than comparing the pension benefits for the typical teacher to their peers in other professions."
That is false. While we did use a 30-year veteran teacher as part of a simple example to begin our pension discussion, our actual estimate of pension values is based on the "normal cost" of providing benefits. This is the contribution to the pension fund that actuaries have decided is needed each year in order to have enough money to pay benefits in the future. Actuaries take into account many factors, including the fact that some teachers do not stick around long enough to collect benefits. So our estimate is a true average of what teachers collect. If we actually did what Sec. Duncan suggested we did -- counting only teachers with full 30-year careers -- the pension value would be much higher than what we report.
Sec. Duncan also says that we "appeared to create out of thin air an 8.6 percent 'job security' salary premium for teachers -- despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of education jobs were lost in the recession and teachers continue to face layoffs."
Job security is not the same as a job guarantee. Of course some teachers have lost their jobs, but the data on unemployment show that, over the last decade, public school teachers were only half as likely as workers in other white collar occupations to become unemployed. That extra security has a value, and our paper describes in detail our method for quantifying it.
Aside from Sec. Duncan's sudden aversion to unwelcome data, what is most disappointing here is the lost opportunity to find common ground. We agree with Sec. Duncan that a much more flexible, performance-based teacher compensation system needs to be implemented, to reward effective teachers. Let's also agree to be consistent in pursuing evidence-based reform.
Andrew G. Biggs is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Jason Richwine and Lindsey Burke are senior policy analysts at the Heritage Foundation.
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At the secondary school level, make wood shop or metal shop a required course.
At the university level .
If we must continue to have athletes who are not college material playing on college teams, there should be a faculty of technical and vocational studies leading to (say) a bachelor of technology degree established as part of the university .”
I don't see in your report where you take to account unpaid work hours that teachers put in. The report had teachers working under 37 hours a week. You assume teachers are working ONLY when students are in the room, which is laughable. I don't know of a single teacher, not one, who works under 50 hours a week. Not one.
You also don't take in to account that some teachers give up their SSI benefits if they take a teacher retirement on the WEP offset. No, it's not a nationwide problem, but it still includes 10s of thousand of teachers. With my WEP offset the 25 years I paid in to SSI is lost. That's a pretty big benefit deduction.
Continued....
Another problem that I see is that you compare the wages of experienced teachers with the wages of inexperienced non-teachers. You reported that if a teacher left teaching they'd make less money in their new careers. Well, sure we would. Anyone making a career change competes against the new people in the gaining career, not the experienced ones. You should be comparing the wages of a 20 year vet in (say) accounting with a 20 year career teacher. Do experienced non-self-employed people in equally rigorous fields get paid more or less at the same career point? I don't know of any who get paid less than teachers, not social workers, government workers, nurses, police, or accountants.
Here's the problem with comparing teachers and private sector non-teachers in terms of overall compensation: It's not that teachers are too generously compensated and that this analysis proves it. The study proves, if anything, that private sector folks are being systematically screwed by the evisceration of the labor movement and by the aggressive assaults on benefits provided employees generally. Teachers are looking better by comparison, only because everyone else has been shafted.
Duncan knows its election time and teachers vote. He has to go. And unless Diane Rativich replaces him, public education is doomed.
As many folks have already pointed out, you can say that your data shows that teachers are overpaid. I'm more inclined to believe that it proves that the current pay and career structure of teaching is not strong enough to attract the best and the brightest.
It's kind of surprising that you didn't reach that conclusion yourselves, as conservative think tanks have repeatedly explained that executives at failed banks and tanking industries must be paid the big bucks because it's necessary to attract and retain the best people to the job.
I know you know how this works. It's curious that in the case of public school teachers, you got things all turned around the other way.
Teaching is a science, an art, and a talent that can be learned and developed, but there are also people with natural ability to teach and who can connect ideas for others very well, as well as have a good rapport with almost anyone. Those are skills that cannot always be taught in a classroom nor are they automatically present merely due to a high IQ.
Teachers must be intelligent, but they must also be intuitive, compassionate, inventive, resourceful (often meaning scrounging things to use in the classroom), tenacious, and even to think like a student at times to do the best job for the students. That takes frequent thought and reflection. Many teachers spend a lot of time outside the classroom thinking of ways to reach students. Two people might see the same thing out in a community and the first person barely registers it and the second one (the teacher) will be thinking of how to use it in a lesson plan. That's the kind of passion and mind set many teachers have. A high GPA does not necessarily mean a person will be a good teacher. There is so much more than that to teaching.
You're right, in the end there is a certain personality that defines the very best teachers. It's a combination of empathy, insight and showmanship. Yes, a good teacher needs a solid foundation in the nuts and bolts of their field, but raw intelligence is not the MOST important ingredient. Anyone that's graduated from college has had a professor that was a brilliant researcher and at the same time an absolutely lousy teacher. Just because you know how quantum physics works doesn't meant you have the ability to explain it to a teenager in a way that allows them to understand it.
My personal weakness is in showmanship. I stutter and when I get excited about what I'm teaching I get tongue tied. Lucky for me, my students manage to work through that most of the time and they understand my enthusiasm. I certainly do admire the great teachers I've met. Teaching is a subtle skill and if it's done well, like any art, it looks easy..... but, oh, it certainly is not.
And by they way, I am so glad you pointed out that 401ks are unable to keep pace with the needs of retirees, especially given that so many think its a good idea to move everyone to that model. Talk about unfunded liabilities! Now that would be a good topic for a report!