Yesterday might have been a watershed (an Epiphany if you will). I woke to this headline and article: Teachers' salaries rise here even as schools face deficits
This story begins (tentatively) to ask one of the questions that we are going to have to answer as a culture over the next decade: "Can we afford to continue to fund education in the way that we have in the past?" (BTW, this is only a subset of the larger question: "Can we afford to live in the way what we have in the past?") The obvious answer is no.
This answer keeps staring us in the face. We keep looking away. It has not stopped staring. The Federal government is answering this question presently by printing money to maintain a false, unsustainable reality. I am convinced that the Federal government so long as it has this power will never answer the question. States cannot print money so right now they are having to think how they will actually live sustainably—i.e., spend only what you have.
The story is a watershed for this area because . . . .
The story is a watershed for this area because really the local papers have never asked this question. I am encouraged that we are at least considering the question. This is a twinkle of hope. There is a lot of reason for discouragement, however, mainly when you read what school board members quoted in the paper say. Their comments are simply not connected to economic reality. Here are the two biggest school board misnomers:
- “We will not keep good teachers if we don’t pay what everyone else is paying.” Bull. This is not a seller’s market—it is a buyer’s market. Good quality people in every field are without work. The salaries of other people are going down. The net worth of others is going down. School boards have to have the courage to act on economic reality—not psychology.
- “Teachers are not well compensated.” This, as best I can tell is not true. It might be true that public school teachers are not compensated as much as others with the same amount of education on a yearly salary basis—I am not sure that there is any longer any difference, but I have heard this. It is certainly not true if you take into account the benefit packages that public employees presently have. Over a lifetime the argument does not hold.
Let me be clear about a few things that this article is not yet saying, but that must be taken into account. I am not against good teachers being paid well. I am working hard right now trying to figure out how to better pay our teachers at Veritas. Teacher compensation has to be tied to success! Our schools are not succeeding. If they are not, we should not continue to compensate people as if they are. To make an NFL analogy, you should not pay Jimmy Clausen (the lowest rated quarterback) Tom Brady’s salary.
Great teachers should be compensated well. Bad teachers must be made to find another calling. Right now, the teachers unions keep this from happening. Here is just a little advice for these unions: compromise. Do what is good for the students and for the entire nation, compromise on pension, compromise on teacher tenure (so that bad teachers can be replace), cut your own salaries and find ways to cut expenses. The public schools have (by far) the largest number of students. If the teachers unions did this they could be heroic. Public education gained ascendency in America mainly because committed people made huge personal sacrifices. Ascendency follows these sorts of sacrifices. If that does not happen again now, be prepared for fairly substantial changes in education in the next ten years.
