An economist plays a teacher. He’d understand
At Cafe Hayek, Don Boudreaux, makes the cogent point that paying teachers less would actually result in comparable education quality:
Either way, cutting teachers’ pay is unlikely to reduce the quality of education supplied in the County schools. If teachers aren’t motivated by money, then they’ll work just as diligently at lower pay as they will at higher pay; if cutting pay will, in fact, cause some teachers to quit, their replacements are likely to perform no worse than them.
If school boards actually had balls they would play hardball with their teachers this recession. After all, we’ve learned that “no crisis should go wasted”.
Just because teachers are willing to put up with other people’s brats doesn’t mean we have to wheelbarrow money their way. Instead of wasting money on ineffective high salaries I’d prefer to remove the stresses teachers have in their jobs – things like NCLB, not being able to discipline children and having too many administrators making non-educational mandates.
BTW: This week I get my first inside view of the public school system as we attempt to register our 12 year old for 7th grade classes. Apparently they already chose his classes for us. Cause they know him best. And changes “are not allowed”. We will see about that… So far I’ve been less than impressed with the diligence and competence of the teachers and administrators we’ve dealt with.
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:19 am
An advanced degree in Half Truths 101.
“if teachers do not respond positively to the prospect of higher monetary rewards, they are unlikely to respond negatively to the prospect of lower monetary rewards” assumes that negative and positive marginal returns are equal. Which they are usually not. Would you flip a coin for $100? For $10000? Only if the economic pain of losing the wagered amount is equal to the economic pleasure of gaining it. For people at marginal income levels, the pain of the loss is greater than the pleasure of the gain.
“In other words, the prospect of higher (merit) pay will not prompt teachers to perform better in the classroom.” There is more than simple salary-effort economics at work in merit pay for any profession where there are no clear and direct performance measures. Teachers have the same problem that government workers do with jobs evaluated by opinion: what matters most is the opinion of the boss. But bosses often don’t do it fairly, use inappropriate criteria, put their own slant on whatever measures are used, etc. Merit pay has serious structural problems by its nature as the federal government found out after the 1977 Merit Pay revolution.
What measure would you use for teacher merit? Smiling kids every afternoon, higher test scores than they would have got if they stayed at home, no discipline problems, etc? Are schools education assets or day-care centers? I would think that your true measure would be the marginal gain of the class over what it would have achieved with some other teacher(s)? What would you use as the starring condition against which the teacher is to be measured? Will you pre-test and post-test every child in the teachers class and use the marginal gain as your criteria?
And teaching is also a profession where economics is only part of the incentive. Many of them do it because they get great satisfaction from helping children.
I’ve seen a lot of theoretical palaver about merit pay with wheelbarrow loads of friendly assumptions to argue how clear and positive the results would be. Balderdash; it’s a lot more complex than that.
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:22 am
I agree. The point is that if they teachers themselves say performance can’t be measured then the ONLY realistic measure is to cut their pay until too many walk.
Pretty simple, unless you are in the hip pocket of the teachers union.
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:53 am
And I suppose you would use the same simplistic criteria for food safety inspectors, police officers, computer programmers, and radiologists. Isn’t lowest-bidder economics so simple and straightforward? Only if you can define the job so accurately that only price matters.
Have you the nerve to practice what you preach in your business?
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:05 am
The teachers said “you can’t measure us”. So what other choice is there? What other measure is there other than money.
They made it simple.
And you made it simpler by not reading what was written.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:02 am
“Have you the nerve to practice what you preach in your business?”
Every business has the nerve to practice it every single day. The measurement of performance in business is customer satisfaction. If the customer isn’t happy, they don’t buy, they don’t come back etc. The business responds TO THE CUSTOMER by lowering the price, improving the product, improving customer service. If the business tried to respond with “you can’t measure us”, it wouldn’t survive.
Unfortunately, with public education, the system isn’t responsible to the individual parent or student. The students are not the customers, the parents are not the customers. I wonder who they are trying to please….oh yeah, the teacher’s unions, the administration etc. They don’t care what my child is learning as long as he’s there the required number of days to collect the money. Trust me, if I (the consumer of public education) am not happy with what is going on with my child’s education, I think I can find a better way. I may not be able to withhold my taxes, but I can deprive them of a body in which to collect money.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:06 am
Yes, we (Paula & Ken) do have private options. I’d prefer, however, if the public schools would be run for the kids not the bureaucracy.
August 4th, 2009 at 11:11 am
1. Outlaw teacher unions
2. Allow teacher demotions for cause
3. Ban state control of K -12
4. Ban “educators” on school boards
5. Allow any decent, intelligent parent to teach.
August 4th, 2009 at 11:12 am
#7… sounds good. Teachers are like Hallmark, a soft fuzzy exterior, but stone cold when it comes to their access to your money. They won’t go down without a fight.