One of my pet peeves is the conventional wisdom that what’s needed to save our public schools is more money. Here is a counterintuitive piece on teacher pay in today’s Wall Street Journal:
“Who, on average, is better paid–public school teachers or architects? How about teachers or economists? You might be surprised to learn that public school teachers are better paid than these and many other professionals. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, public school teachers earned $34.06 per hour in 2005, 36% more than the hourly wage of the average white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty or technical worker.”
The piece does note that teachers who make higher salaries tend to get results in terms of class test scores – so, yes, the market works, even in education. We should throw the non-achieving bums out and pay those who do well.