05-15-2008, 06:52 AM
Quote:So, no, pop star is not more valuable than teacher, but since the government and the unions control education here we may never know what people might pay for well educated children. I know some people who pay $15,000 per student per year for a private high school. So that would be $83 per day per pupil and figure 25 kids per teacher per day, so that amounts to $10,375 per week, or $375,000 for the 25 students for 2 semesters. There would be some overhead for building, books, and administration of course but still, there is no reason that teachers couldn't make into 6 figures if education were run more like business.
Point to a profession where people are paid less than their value and I'll show you the government intervention that makes it so.
I find this bit very interesting...this is what I was thinking about when reading the article. Take the example of teachers. Many people feel that education is not good enough, this can be because of too big classes, uninterested teachers, not being able to get university trained teacher in high school etc. But can we change this other than the simple but crude 25 % salary increase for all teachers (and it might not even work). And would we agree? 25 % salary increase means a lot less tax money for other things. Should they just go on strike (it is very hard in a western country to get people en masse on the streets, people are always scared of losing what they already have. Should all school be privatized? Well I fully agree with chesspiece face, you will get class warfare.
ANyway these are things that cannot even be changed like this, there is not enough money to go around to have everybody for his own education, fire department, roads, trash collection etc.etc. if they were privatized.
My second point (main point actually) was the impact such a thing has on a society. There is no real stimulant to get skilled people to work on real problems we are facing. Things like world poverty, global warming, resistance of virusses to drugs, sustainable fuel economy.