How Much are Teachers Worth?

December 20, 2006

It is no surprise that a commission is comprised of Education leaders, (eager to cement their monopoly into the fabric of society for the forseeable future), and business leaders, (eager to perpetuate the subsidization of American education) have issued a report demanding more money for schools. The article states that “Current teaching is failing to prepare young Americans for the global economy,” and as always, the failsafe solution to any government inefficiency or failure, is to simply throw more money at the problem.

“The commission recommends paying beginning teachers about $45,000 per year,” which is laughable. Perhaps beginning teachers should earn more. Perhaps they should not. We will never know the real answer so long as the market is controlled by one of the strongest unions in the world, and that market is all-but guaranteed by various levels of state and federal government. In the absence of a market, and market-generated prices, there is simply no right answer to the question: “How much should teachers be paid?”

In all other industries, production preceeds payment. This is a bulletproof economic argument: if “payment” occurs sans production, then it is not in fact payment, but charity. But tirades aside, if you turn out droves of undereducated miscreants, you don’t deserve to get more money. And suggesting that teachers don’t educate well because they aren’t paid well enough is putting the cart before the proverbial horse.


Posted in: Economics Lessons

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