Are teachers underpaid?

The latest addition to our lending library is Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America's public schools, by Terry M. Moe, a Stanford professor of political science whose specialty is the study of government and political institutions. When he set out to find out why American public schools were falling so far short of the mark, he discovered that their administration is characterized by "bizarre forms of organization ... that no one in their right mind would favor if they were simply concerned with what works best for children. The schools are organized mainly to benefit the adults who work there." And the principal reason behind the bizarre organization, according to Professor Moe, is the teachers' unions.

This excerpt (selected paragraphs from pages 162 through 172) asks the question: Are teachers underpaid? Although the author is writing about the US, conditions are very similar in Ontario - except that the average teacher salary in Ontario is now almost $85,000 - considerably higher than the American average.

"According to one widely accepted estimate, the average teacher salary for the 2008-09 school year was $53,910. Whether this figure is considered to be high or low, and thus whether it constitutes evidence that teachers are underpaid, depends in part on what it is compared to. But let's put that aside for the moment, and begin by recognizing what the number itself represents: teachers are paid this 'annual' salary for working much less than a full year. Indeed, their work year averages just thirty-eight weeks - because, unlike almost all other professionals, teachers have their summers off. Many people go into teaching precisely because they want to have free time during the summer. They like it, they value it....

"Another form of compensation arises from the nature of their formally scheduled work day: it is shorter than that of other professionals, roughly 34.9 hours a week as contrasted to thirty-five to forty hours for comparable occupations. This is not to say that teachers ultimately work less than other professionals do, for people in all these occupations may do some of their work at home, and it is unclear (and a matter of dispute) how many hours teachers and other professionals actually work. But in general teachers tend to have more freedom and flexibility during the work day, which they can use for their families, leisure, or whatever they want. This too is a valuable aspect of the job, one that clearly has something to do with why so many women go into teaching. (They currently make up about three-fourths of the public school workforce.) It allows them to juggle career and family in a far more manageable way than other workers can. This is a clear benefit of the job, an additional form of compensation....

"Teachers are members of the pension elite. Some 96 percent of them have access to 'defined-benefit' retirement programs, which provide them with pensions of specified amounts - much larger than Social Security - for the rest of their lives, usually with adjustments for inflation and often with provisions that extend payments to the spouse when the employee dies....In addition - and this cannot be emphasized enough - they do not have to shoulder any of the financial risk.... With defined-benefit programs, the amount of the retirement annuity (usually with inflation safeguards) is 'defined': it is guaranteed. It does not fluctuate with the stock market or the economy and can be counted upon as future income....

"Pensions and health benefits provide valuable types of security for teachers after they retire. But the ultimate security is that, during the years when they are actively teaching, they essentially cannot be fired. They have 'tenure' and - assuming they don't murder someone or molest a child or stop showing up for work - they are assured of being able to continue in their job for as long as they want. This is the case, moreover, regardless of how they perform in the classroom and regardless of how much their students learn. Here again, America's private sector workers can only dream of such a thing: a guaranteed, totally secure job....

"The salary numbers the unions roll out are invariably based on annual salaries, and they conveniently ignore the other components of the compensation package. The fact is, teachers are compensated in many ways: through salaries, yes, but also through defined-benefit pension programs, health care insurance for active employees, health care insurance for retirees, tenure, summers off, flexible work schedules, health care buy-outs, and more. Taken together, these components add up to a compensation package that is clearly very valuable."

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