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Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

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Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#261

Post by fragmede »

arroz wrote: post #134
hammock wrote: post #70

The minimum starting salary for a teacher in Chicago is $60,000 (cost of living adjusted), the highest in the country. It hasn't solved Chicago Public Schools' problems. Source: https://wirepoints.org/chicago-teachers-are-paid-some-of-the...

You are not paying teachers a living wage so it “solves” public schools problems. You are paying them a living wage because it is the correct thing to do.

One notion, then, since paying people seems to bring up so much emnity, is how about giving the teachers $10/yr expense accounts instead/as well. What's so heartbreaking about paying schoolteachers so damned little, isn't that they make so little, though that is a travesty in and of itself, but that they have to make a choice between spending money on food for themselves, and school supplies for the children they teach. Notebooks and pencils and shoes are the parents responsibility to purchase for their children, but what's a school teacher to do about a neglected child? A child who's parents can't or won't afford lunch for their kid? An expense account for the teachers would go a long way to improving student outcomes, without actually having to pay the teachers more, which seems to be controversial, for some reason.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#262

Post by endisneigh »

tsgagnon wrote: post #110
endisneigh wrote: post #82

The only way teachers would ever be able to make a lot of money is if some metrics apparatus was created by the United States and income outcomes were traced back to individual schools and teachers in said schools got some portion of that as part of their salary. Of course, the USA would have to bootstrap the first "cohort" of this. Otherwise, the point is simple - good teachers don't get paid more, because there's n…

I'm not sure how you reward outcomes of teaching without also actively discouraging teachers from taking positions at any school that could be seen as "struggling" from an academic perspective.

There are plenty of ways you could do it. The simplest is that you could normalize by the area.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#263

Post by pokstad »

teucris wrote: post #242
macinjosh wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the voucher systems I've heard of abolish the public system. It simply gives parents and students more choices and actually forces the public system to compete instead of continually beg for more funding that ultimately goes into the pockets of administrators instead of teachers and resources for students. I do not see what public education advocates are fearing here. If their systems are so amazing and essen…

One issue is that good quality education isn’t linear in cost. A school with 5 students may have lower overhead but will lack amenities that enable better learning, eg athletic infrastructure, libraries, etc. We provide public versions of those things, but then we’re back to funding parts of the education system with public levies. Furthermore there are some economies of scale that a public system enables, particular…

The most important thing for young student success is small class size. These concerns you have are more applicable for older students but I’m sure there’s ways to mitigate them.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#264

Post by cs702 »

HEmanZ wrote: post #128

This is loosely related, but every time I think of public school teacher salaries my mind goes to the public school teachers I know. As a group they are… exceptionally ungifted. As just one example, I lived with two middle school teachers in Texas for a few years. They probably couldn’t pass the grade they were teaching. I have never met two professionals with so many credentials (MS in Education) and so little sense…

Some years ago, McKinsey conducted a study which found that a majority of public school teachers in the US come from the bottom of the distribution of academic performance in college:

https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/public%...

...which is consistent with your experience.

While there are public school teachers that come from the top of the academic distribution, they constitute a minority of all public school teachers in the country.

The same study, BTW, found that countries with better public school systems hire teachers that come from the top of the distribution of academic performance.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#265

Post by pokstad »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #114
pokstad wrote: post #10

Instead, allow for a voucher system where parents can apply the equivalent amount of money the public school spends and apply it towards private schools. Make it easy for teachers to start their own school or coop to compete for vouchers. Definitely a pipe dream but it might work.

What would stop this from further becoming a segregated system where public schools are left supporting IEP and other expensive student groups on a shoestring budget while private schools accept only the most profitable students?

Make sure IEP is covered as part of the law and the budget is allocated adequately? This is a hypothetical law, you can suggest whatever you want for the sake of discussion.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#266

Post by monocasa »

jacobr1 wrote: post #252
monocasa wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, we already have massive teacher shortages. Class sizes keep going up, and many school systems are switching to four day schedules because of staffing issues. Not everything can be looked at from a macro econ 101 supply and demand take; the real world is much more complicated than that.

Sometimes it is more complicated, but in this case the analysis does apply. The problem isn't on the demand side, but on the supply. And one way to increase supply is to charge a higher price, or otherwise compensate (more time off, better work environment, prestige, etc ...) and a big part of the reason we have a teacher shortage is that there aren't enough compensatory incentives.

Sure, my point was more about the parent's analysis of "if you want teachers to be paid more, make less teachers".

ie. I'm saying that we don't have to put our hopes in the basket of hoping that economic pressures force higher wages if we make teachers less prevalent; we can simply pay them more.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#267

Post by willcipriano »

mempko wrote: post #235
nxm wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually good teachers should be paid much more than that, but the bad teachers which are setting up kids for failure in life should be shown the door. Unfortunately that’s not how the teacher unions want it to be. Hard to reward the good ones well if you can’t get rid of the bad ones.

How do you rate a good teacher with a bad one? Education is a bit different than most professions. Testing kids solves for the wrong thing as teachers are forced to "teach to the test" instead of educate children. I recommend the work of Alfie Kohn to learn more.

> How do you rate a good teacher with a bad one?

If the education experts can't tell the difference why bother trying to find good ones? Pay low wages and scrape the bottom of the barrel, there is no measurable difference between any of them right?

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#268

Post by pokstad »

zwirbl wrote: post #23
pokstad wrote: post #10

Instead, allow for a voucher system where parents can apply the equivalent amount of money the public school spends and apply it towards private schools. Make it easy for teachers to start their own school or coop to compete for vouchers. Definitely a pipe dream but it might work.

It might work in doing what exactly?

Many schools spend a lot of money on everything but the teachers. Voucher run schools are like small experiments to do things differently.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#269

Post by 908B64B197 »

HEmanZ wrote: post #128

This is loosely related, but every time I think of public school teacher salaries my mind goes to the public school teachers I know. As a group they are… exceptionally ungifted. As just one example, I lived with two middle school teachers in Texas for a few years. They probably couldn’t pass the grade they were teaching. I have never met two professionals with so many credentials (MS in Education) and so little sense…

> I'm not sure which of these outcomes is more likely. The optimist in me says more smart people see educating the youth as a viable career and we get more competent educators. The cynic in me says it never works like that in a system as bureaucratic as education.

You would basically need to have teachers re-interview for the raise (something the unions will never allow).

> I have never met two professionals with so many credentials (MS in Education) and so little sense.

Teacher's pay is incredibly interesting. Engineers are paid on results (this is even more true at serious tech companies where a significant portion of ones earning will be stock comp) while teachers are paid a government approved rate no matter the results.

I know a lot of parents that would pay serious money to teachers based on results (if their kid can get into Stanford/MIT for instance) if said teachers could show a track record of having previously mentored alumni for instance. Instead, the premium is now captured by real-estate since parents that care will pay extra to get into a good school district.

During the pandemic some parents around me simply decided to go ahead with a learning pod [0]. They hired a tutor (burned out local teacher really) and it's been night and day. They have been extremely hesitant to return to the public school system (especially here in SF) thanks to initiatives like this [1] or curriculum where math is considered racist [2].

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/article/learning-pods-coronavirus.ht...

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Sa...

[2] https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11...

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#270

Post by [deleted] »

sumeno wrote: post #177
jvmfjvfjvf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It allows more choice. Why should a poor student be forced to have only one public school option?

There are a limited number of spots in private schools, if everyone suddenly has $x more dollars to spend on private schools the private schools will raise prices by at least $x to reduce demand. The wealthy will still be the ones in private schools and tax payer money is diverted to the private schools instead of the public schools while the poorest are still in public schools. There are also other hurdles to poor k…

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