Thursday, November 10, 2011

Paying for Mediocrity: More on public school teacher pay

In response to my recent post on public school teachers salaries, a number of commenters came to the defense of the public education establishment. These are people, mind you, who criticize conservatives in general and private Christian educators in particular for a lack of intellectual facility. They criticize these people, but defend a system which scrapes the bottom of the academic barrel when it comes to staffing teaching positions.

Art, a University of Kentucky science professor and veteran member of the Peanut Gallery here, after trying to ignore benefits in his argument that public school teachallenged me to produce some numbers to substantiate my charge that, relative to the private sector (and their educational achievements) public school teachers are not only aren't underpaid, but may, in fact, be overpaid.

So after a little snooping, here are some figures:

According to the Teaching Jobs Portal, the salary for a first year Kentucky teacher with minimal qualifications (and given the level of academic accomplishment for these people, this is pretty low) is $23,848.

The average annual base salary for a  KY teacher in 2009 was $46,417. That's with 15 weeks of vacation per year, and a retirement benefit of 2.5 percent of your salary multiplied by the number of years served. In other words, if you work for 25 years, you will make, for your retirement, over 60 percent of your regular salary.

Oh, and that's a guaranteed retirement benefit. The Kentucky Teacher Retirement System provides what is called a defined benefit retirement program. That means that no matter what the return on investment, they will get the 2.5 percent. Private companies, on the other hand, have almost entirely abandoned defined benefit plans because of what happens in times like we're in now, when market conditions result in underfunded plans. They use defined contribution plans (the most popular being 401K plans) where the benefits is determined solely by the amount your account has gained due to the investment return.

I was a corporate trust officer in the late 80s/early 90s and administered retirement plans for small companies. None of our clients used defined benefit plans, and the few big companies that still had them were in the process of phasing them out because they were becoming unaffordable. Except the big companies forced into keeping them by unions, of course.

And then there are the health benefits. I couldn't find any aggregate statistics for health benefits, but suffice it to say public school teachers get a subsidized health care benefit.

The only numbers I could find on comparative salaries between public and privates were from NCES, which reports that "in 2007–08, the average annual base salary of regular full-time public school teachers ($49,600) was higher than the average annual base salary of regular full-time private school teachers ($36,300)." And that latter figure has got to be overstated. I have dealt with a lot of private schools and none of them has a base salary that high. And needless to say, most private school teachers get no retirement benefits or subsidized health care. Nor do they get job protection. Not only that: public school teachers (at least in KY) get tenure after four years.

Maybe Art could tell us what other private professionals make this kind of money combined with these kinds of benefits. How many of them have guaranteed retirement benefits? How many of them get 15 weeks of vacation time? How many have their jobs are protected after four years?

And we haven't even talked about the sorry state of their academic accomplishment--for people responsible for educating our nation's children no less. That's next up.

10 comments:

One Brow said...

YOur link says the avarage secondary teacher was $46210, and elementary $43850. Where'd you get $46417?

By the way, since secdonary school teachers perform above average on the GRE, at least, shouldn't they be excluded from this little tantrum of yours?

By comparison, just my anecdotal experience working as a DBA.

I'm currently working for a local non-profit hospital, making about $60K, which is the low end of the spectrum. I've discussed local opportunities ranging from $75K-$90K, but I really like where I work and believe in what I do, so I've been staying put. Still, let's put the average at a $75K (a little low), and let's say I'm willing to live the same life-style as the teacher making $50K. Even after taxes, I'm putting at least an additional $20K into my savings every single year (while the teacher is contibuting some $10K, I'm putting in $30K). Over 25 years, you think I can't beat their retirment level?

Martin Cothran said...

One Brow,

I'm quoting the annual base salary in the text. I'm not sure what the difference is between that and what is listed near the top. What's listed at the top may be a more recent figure, it doesn't say.

Tim said...

One of my favorite teachers in high school (Roncalli High School in Manitowoc,WI- catholic/ private) left to teach at a public high school because of higher pay and benefits.

Tim said...

One brow, it's insultive how you call it a little tantrum. Every forum I see you post on you struggle to not sneer in your responses. The way you go out of your way to be rude leads me to think that Vox Day is right about atheism and autism.

One Brow said...

Tim said...
Every forum I see you post on you struggle to not sneer in your responses.

It will not bother me at all if you sneer. Of course, it would be more productive to present facts and analysis, which would make for an interesting discussion. However, if sneering is the best you can manage, you should feel no need to withhold on my account.

The way you go out of your way to be rude leads me to think that Vox Day is right about atheism and autism.

As the father of a son with PDD-NOS and a daughter who is in hte process of being diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, I'll admit that having their conditions tossed around as indicative of atheism annoys me. That Vox Day is the sort to exagge4rate the nature of the correlation doesn't help. Further, if you think you can draw a clear distinction between the online behavior of atheists, and that of theists, you're kidding yourself.

You are correct that public high school teachers get better pay/benefits than private high school teachers, though. This is different from saying they are overpaid.

Art said...

Martin,

Maybe I missed it - I still cannot tell if you think public school teachers are ridiculously overpaid.

Do you think $46K is an outrageously high annual salary for someone with a 4 year degree (or more - it's not clear if your average is for all teachers, including those with graduate degrees) who is charged with educating our children? A simple yes or no will do.

For the record, I've had the pleasure to get to know about 20 teachers in the Fayette county public schools over the years. I have no problems with any of them earning a salary that would allow them a modest middle-class lifestyle - owning a small home, a car, raising a family on something other than food stamps, and maybe entertaining the idea of helping send their own children to college. I'm not sure $46K per year is enough for this, but that's part of the problem IMO.

Tim, do you begrudge your favorite teacher better pay and benefits, if opportunity presents itself?

Art said...

One Brow (and Martin),

IIRC, public school teachers are not in the Social Security system. Which means that they do not have that resource once they retire.

Tim said...

Art, I don't know if that's true or not. But I think the social security system is being sapped up by leeches anyway.
Private employees are strongly advised to get on a 401K plan because the benefits of social security might not be there when they retire.

Tim said...

"Tim, do you begrudge your favorite teacher better pay and benefits, if opportunity presents itself?"

Opportunities that don't exist within private schools.
My point with that is this: don't be stunned when people aren't as sympathetic to the 'plight' of public school teachers.

I would love for the following to be implemented:
1) School Choice Options: weeding out the under performing public schools (and teachers) by allowing the parents to send their children to other public school districts with better teaches.

2) Voucher Programs: allowing parents who send their children to private school to use their tax dollars to credit the private school and not the public school whose district they happen to find themselves in.

3) Manually Remitting Union Dues: Which is clearly the thing that is shaking the unions and the blind supporters to the core.



These being implemented would make me very happy. I'd love to see the protesters cry about their loss of special privileges and the unfair treatment befallen them because now kids can go to successful school and the 'cover your own' committee can start to sweat.
But you know the big kicker would be those vouchers. That really boils a public school teachers egg "What!? That tax payer money is MY MONEY!!!! How dare the parents have any say in it!"

One Brow said...

Tim said...
Opportunities that don't exist within private schools.

Private schools have their advantages over publoic schools, aqdn lower pay is one price of that advantage.

1) School Choice Options: weeding out the under performing public schools (and teachers) by allowing the parents to send their children to other public school districts with better teaches.

Leaving the students who are worst off with schools systems that are considered undesirable, as the school choose the best students from those districts, creating a feedback driving the worse districts further down.

2) Voucher Programs: allowing parents who send their children to private school to use their tax dollars to credit the private school and not the public school whose district they happen to find themselves in.

However, only when the private school agrees to iadmitting the student, again creating a system where the best students get siphoned off and the public school system takes the worst students.

3) Manually Remitting Union Dues: Which is clearly the thing that is shaking the unions and the blind supporters to the core.

How abourt manually remitting teacher pay, as well? I'm sure you'd be very comfortable with your boss deciding to pay you, or not, on any given day, right? How about public school teachers who don't pay union benefits getting pay at rates equivalent to nearby private schools, since that would be their market value without representation? Were you expecting the union to work for free?

These being implemented would make me very happy.

Diabled kids who can't get into private/selective schools, not so much. But that's not your problem, right?