"The Fiscal Cliff" Really???

[Jester]

I would then agree that the line would be flat with a small offset for acquiring new skills. But, if GDP doubles over 20 years, there is no reason the cost of education per pupil doubles.

But what is the correct level to fix education at? I would argue that most countries under-prioritize education. The value of an educated population (not just economic, but social) is incalculable. If you wanted to find a place to economize, my suggestion would be to look elsewhere.

I think there is a fallacy in here. Underpay will get you worse, but there is no advantage to overpaying.

If you believe there is a competition among good jobs for highly talented people, then yes, overpaying gets you better people. Or, at least, makes teaching a much more attractive option for people whose career and education trajectory would otherwise take them to higher-paying professions. That's not a fallacy, that's opportunity cost.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

If you wanted to find a place to economize, my suggestion would be to look elsewhere.

There are lot's of places I'd go before education, but at the federal level it is redundant to State.

If you believe there is a competition among good jobs for highly talented people, then yes, overpaying gets you better people.

Is there a real marketplace for teaching positions? If a better teacher moves into the district would anyone be displaced? Would you pay better ones more, of just the ones with the most seniority?

[Jester]

Is there a real marketplace for teaching positions? If a better teacher moves into the district would anyone be displaced? Would you pay better ones more, of just the ones with the most seniority?

That's the wrong place to look for a market - even optimally, that would just shuffle the best teachers to the higher-paying (or more sought after) jobs, which is not a clear gain for a public service.

Where the incentives need to change is at the level of good students picking their college majors, and at the level of the certification necessary to teach. If you raise the wages and raise the bar for entry, making teachers less like civil servants and more like lawyers or doctors, then you will get a better qualified body of teachers. But so long as wages are mediocre, working conditions pretty miserable, and barriers to entry very low (easiest degree in most universities), then you're going to end up with low quality teachers.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

Where the incentives need to change is at the level of good students picking their college majors, and at the level of the certification necessary to teach. If you raise the wages and raise the bar for entry, making teachers less like civil servants and more like lawyers or doctors, then you will get a better qualified body of teachers. But so long as wages are mediocre, working conditions pretty miserable, and barriers to entry very low (easiest degree in most universities), then you're going to end up with low quality teachers.

Since there is no quality control on the education the kids get, then there is no difference between paying mediocre, or high wages since the outcome on average is mediocre. The government is taking health care in that direction, but sometimes people get to choose their doctors now which creates demand (and higher wages) for the good ones. Simply paying them more does not make them perform better. If you raise the bar for entry in a profession, you will raise the costs (due to shortage) and possibly the quality, but you will have shortage resulting in more students per teacher and thereby lower quality. This may make teaching more attractive, but I'm not sure it would resolve the issues.

Unless we move it to the private sector (or ape it better), there will not be anything other than a "civil servent" feeling to the teaching profession.

[Jester]

Since there is no quality control on the education the kids get, then there is no difference between paying mediocre, or high wages since the outcome on average is mediocre. The government is taking health care in that direction, but sometimes people get to choose their doctors now which creates demand (and higher wages) for the good ones. Simply paying them more does not make them perform better. If you raise the bar for entry in a profession, you will raise the costs (due to shortage) and possibly the quality, but you will have shortage resulting in more students per teacher and thereby lower quality. This may make teaching more attractive, but I'm not sure it would resolve the issues.

Unless we move it to the private sector (or ape it better), there will not be anything other than a "civil servent" feeling to the teaching profession.

For whatever reason, the thrust of the argument doesn't seem to be getting across here. Imagine a smart, capable person who is trying to decide what kind of career to pursue. They look at all the options, weigh the pros and cons, and decide. So long as teaching pays crap wages, gets little to no respect from anyone, and the degrees are printed on toilet paper, then this talented person is almost certainly going to go become a lawyer, or a banker, or a doctor, or whatever else. The people who go into teaching will either be those talented few with a slightly unhinged love of teaching, or people who can't hack it in harder disciplines.

Guilds control their own quality. We do not lack for quality lawyers and doctors, and they are among the least private, most highly regulated professions. If we made education more like those professions, by both demanding more from our teachers and paying them better, we would get better teachers.

And for what it's worth, teacher/student ratios don't seem to matter very much, when they do the cross-country regressions. Teacher quality is vastly more important than teacher quantity.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

Guilds control their own quality. We do not lack for quality lawyers and doctors, and they are among the least private, most highly regulated professions. If we made education more like those professions, by both demanding more from our teachers and paying them better, we would get better teachers.

I'm pretty close to it here at our college. I work with the dean of the education program to report the quality of our teacher education program to the state and federal government. Maybe our state is different, but the program is rigorous - the first two years are pre-ed, then if they pass tests they can enter the program. Then two more years of teacher education, more tests by subject to qualify in that sub-discipline, then supervised student teaching in the fifth year. And, now, they need to document their progress meeting various state mandated goals in an online portfolio, which includes a number of videos of their teaching performance. All this goes to the State, and is reviewed. Only then, if they merit it, do they get the license to teach. The testing is coordinated with State department of education, and then administered by a third party service on behalf of the State. Our program is rated by the pass rates of our candidates. Then once licensed, every year, they need to rack up a number of continuing education credits in their disciplines to remain licensed.