In light of all the recent teacher strikes, a memo has been circulating blogs, Facebook, and I am sure it is on Twitter as well, about how teachers would make more money if they were paid the wages of a babysitter. The memo is supposed to put things in perpective for those who are against the teacher's demands. I find the memo very short-sighted. The problems in our nation and in our educational system go much, much deeper than sufficient wages, and throwing more money at the teachers and at an educational system that is failing in ever so many ways is not the solution.
I don't doubt that there are underpaid teachers, but there are overpaid ones as well. AND there are definitely overpaid administrators as John Stossel showed us in his very revealing "Stupid in America".
So what are the problems and what are the solutions? One of the problems with public education is that it is morally wrong. How so? Let's take a look at where our teachers get their pay. That comes from you and me, the property owners (well, not 'me' exactly, since I don't actually own porperty). We use the term 'property owners' but this is not really correct; we don't really own what can be taken away by the government if we don't keep paying for it, thus property taxes are unconstitutional, as the Constitution was set up to protect our property ownership. So in other words, the very money that pays teacher's salaries is only available by means of extortion. But, maybe some are not opposed to this, after all, the extorted money is going to our children's education (well, once again, I cannot include myself in this as I do homeschool). During the Civil War, slave owners excused themsleves , pointing out that, even though they knew slavery was wrong, giving slaves up would mean losing everything they owned. The problem with this thinking is that wrong is wrong no matter WHO is benefitting by it and in WHAT WAY they are benefitting. Here is another way to look at it, would it be right to demand, at gunpoint, that a neighbor pay for our children's education? Of course not, but yet we have no problem with the government doing this? To put it plainly, it is wrong to force others to pay for our children's education through extortion even if it is the government doing it. So, not only should the government not be involved in education as it requires extortion/stealing to fund it, but, let's not forget that they also should not be involved in it because we, as a nation, are broke and flat out can't afford it. Underpaid teachers are among the least of our nation's problems right now. Sorry teachers, but we have no money to pay you more, we are about to collapse.
Let's not miss the forest for the trees.
So, on to the next problem. I think we can all agree that not all teachers are equally good at what they do. I bet that many of you have experienced the ill-effects of bad teachers that either you yourself were taught by or that your child had to put up with. Do these teachers deserve a pay raise? Of course not. They probably make too much already for the horrible job they are doing. So what happens when teachers and teacher's unions demand more pay; are they demanding it for the great teachers only? No. They want equal pay raises for all, reguardless of ability or quality of instruction that they are giving. Unfortunately, union demands not only remove motivation to be a better teacher, but they also make it near impossible to fire these bad teachers . And even with the handful of good, and even fewer, great teachers out there, I think that no one can argue with the fact that our government schools are failing miserably. This incredible failure has been well documented (even by our own government) and yet we want to throw more money at it? Let's go back to Stossel's report and see the reality of whether more money equals a better education.
The solution to this problem is very simple, pull the government and unions out of education and let the free market work its magic. This will guarantee that good teachers keep their jobs and get the pay they deserve. Bad teachers and failing schools simply don't survive in a free market.
One more problem is with this memo itself. While this sounds like teachers are underpaid following the reasoning/logic used, something about it reminds me of a joke I once read. It went something like this:
'So you want a day off?
Let’s take a look at what you are asking for.
There are 365 days per year available for work.
There are 52 weeks per year in which you already have 2 days off per week, leaving 261 days available for work.
Since you spend 16 hours each day away fron work, you have used up 170 days, leaving only 91 days available.
You spend 30 minutes each day on coffee break which counts for 23 days each year, leaving only 68 days available.
With a 1 hour lunch each day, you used up another 46 days, leaving only 22 days available for work.
You normally spend 2 days per year on sick leave.
This leaves you only 20 days per year available for work.
We are off 5 holidays per year, so your available working time is down to 15 days.
We generously give 14 days vacation per year which leaves only 1 day available for work.
There’s no way I’ll let you take that day off!'
Somewhere in this memo, the math is amiss and the reasoning faulty. I would love to see a comparison done with other career's take-home pay using this same reasoning I am going to bet that the results will tell us that we all should become babysitters. And we all pay in to Uncle Sam out of our paychecks, right? Therefore, no one really earns the hourly wages they are 'supposed' to (P.S. don't forget that the more you make, the more they take). Plus, there are other factors not being considered here; Milwaukee teachers make approximately $55,000 per year in salary on average, BUT they earn an additional $40,000 plus in health and retirement benefits annually.
So I leave you with this .... if these figures were truly accurate, then why aren't more teachers quitting their jobs and taking up the 'very lucrative' career of babysitting?
Thank you for posting this
ReplyDelete