If I’ve said this once…

From the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal:

Who, on average, is better paid–public school teachers or architects? How about teachers or economists? You might be surprised to learn that public school teachers are better paid than these and many other professionals. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, public school teachers earned $34.06 per hour in 2005, 36% more than the hourly wage of the average white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty or technical worker.

…

Evidence suggests that the way we pay teachers is more important than simply what they take home. Currently salaries are determined almost entirely by seniority–the number of years in the classroom–and the number of advanced degrees accumulated. Neither has much to do with student improvement.

The report they cite can be found here.

These are the two most important changes I think we need to see in America :

  1. Implement the FairTax.
  2. Shift education funding to a pure, unrestricted voucher program.

Changing education from a government run, union dominated monopoly into a competitive market would do wonders to both improve the quality of education and bring about a more just compensation system for teachers.  Instead of getting paid based on how long you’ve been around teachers will be paid based on how well they teach.  What a concept!

And, by the way, a voucher program doesn’t mean the end of government schools because they too will make the necessary changes to stay relevant.  Plus, they’ll have built in advantages over private schools since, for example, their facilities come “free” to them.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Friday, February 2nd, 2007 at 6:28 am and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.