Burnt Orange Report

Jim D,

Well, I suppose reaction to the plan sort of depends on how well funded those failing school districts are to begin with. If they are recieving the same amount of cash as everyone else, and still failing, something is wrong and has nothing to do with funding issues. It *is* a sick idea to provide more money to districts that perform the worst, rewarding failure with more cash.

Look at basic public choice economics. Teachers and school administrators aren't altruistic superhumans out only to serve the public good. They are just as motivated by self interest as everyone else, and their self interest is served by (a) getting as much funding for schools as possible and, being human, (b) having to put as little effort into work as possible. Sorry, that's just human nature. Self interested motivation doesn't always apply to everyone, but it is an accurate description of the behavior of the vast majority of people. With tenure, and pay based on seniority, you have a system where it is basically impossible to fire anyone, no matter how bad a job they do, or reward any teacher, no matter how stellar they are. Where is the institutional incentive to teach effectively?

There are some great teachers who nonetheless do wonderful work, but there are also plenty of teachers, who, faced with this incentive structure, slack off. Look, I went to public schools, and yes, I had some good teachers who helped me a lot. I also had teachers who were awful, and everyone, including the other teachers and administrators knew it (and told/warned me about), and yet they were still pulling in $70,000 a year based on seniority. I also had a lot of decent, not good but not bad teachers. Under the current set up, there is no incentive for teachers to teach effectively besides their own consciences, which are not always the most effective motivators, certainly not after 20-25 years on the job when teachers start to feel burnt out.

If you claim that teachers do work purely out of the interests of serving the public good, then why are teacher's unions monolithically opposed to ending the tenure system that makes it impossible (nearly) to fire teachers, and (even more perplexingly if teachers are altruistic) opposed to merit pay? If, on the other hand, like most of humanity, most teachers are self interested, then to encourage excellence in schools, we need to align the teachers incentives with providing academic excellence: merit pay, financial penalties and for ultimately firing persistantly bad teachers, and less cash for districts that continue to fail (well, ideally vouchers for students in those districts, but even cutting funding would motivate the public school employees).

Sherk
The Jolly Green Ogre

Teachers and school administrators aren't altruistic superhumans out only to serve the public good. - Sherk

They're damned close, Sherk. You and I should be so public-spirited. What public school teachers and school administrators aren't, these days, is politically naive. Sorry if you don't approve.

(No, I am not a teacher or a school administrator.)

It occurred to me that I need to define a term I coined in this post, to wit, Plano-ization.

Plano-ize (Plano-ized, Plano-ization)
'plA-nO-"Iz
transitive verb
: the natural outcome of ghetto-ization, whereby a supposedly ghetto-ized social problem (e.g. drug abuse) is discovered to be endemic in a location which had been previously presumed to be unaffected; and the social outcry resulting from that discovery.

from Plano, a city in Texas, and an ironic play on the word "ghetto-ize."

"They're damned close, Sherk. You and I should be so public-spirited."

Steve,

First of all, teaching isn't exactly a painful duty for teachers which they take up for the public good. Out of work by 4:30 every day, with three months off during the summer, and working with kids all day does not exactly qualify as a painful sacrifice for the betterment of humanity.

Secondly, if they teachers are such supermen (and women), why do (a) teacher's unions so adamantly oppose merit pay / tenure reforms that allow districts to fire the truly incompetent. What is the motivation if not self interest, if not the fact they don't want to be paid according to the results of their teaching (b) Even well funded inner city school fail so badly, while private schools for people in the same socio-economic demographic (ie. parochial schools) consistently outperform them. Of course, private schools can dump bad teachers, and their is an institutional incentive to teach effectively.

Look, just because they work with children it doesn't mean teachers are saints or any less self interested than the rest of humanity.

Sherk

"Out of work by 4:30 every day" sounds like a nice sound bite until you realize that they're there at 7:45 or 8:00 every morning--and that assumes that they're not advising a club or sport.

Sherk, did you see somebody drilling holes in teachers' heads to mount halos?

Classroom teaching is extremely difficult but rewarding work for the people who are capable of doing it. I tried it for one year but with the demands on my time, the low pay, and the lack of health insurance (just cut from the latest state budget); I decided me to find another line of work.

Of course teachers are self-interested. Who isn't self-interested? Is "being self-interested" a new sin to try to pin on liberals? If you faced the challenges that public school teachers face, you'd be a fool if you didn't organize to gain some political clout.

standardized testing. The purpose is to cheapen education while at the same time producing illusory results...

What is your alternative, Jim, for providing accountability for the billions of taxpayer dollars spent on public education?

"Would the Governor Please Get Serious?"

Of course Perry is serious. Serious about gutting public education among Democratic constituencies.

What is scary is that he is serious as a heart attack.

Sherk,

I'm almost offended by your characterizations of teachers. I come from a family of teachers, and I can tell you that they are NOT home by 3:30 or 4. They arrive before 8, and rarely leave until after 5. And then you speak like their job is easy. On an already low salary, they are usually forced to pay for classroom expenses out of their own pocket. After knowing many teachers, I can say that they belong to one of the LEAST self-interested professions. Cut them some slack.

Also, it should be noted that part of Hair Perry's "reward incentives" MUST be matched by the district itself in order to receive them. When he announced this to a group of superintendents in Houston, they laughed at him. Right. Because all school districts have piles of money waiting to be matched and distributed to teachers.

Example Number One: the stubborn insistence on pushing the failed, Victorian-era abstinence-only agenda instead of a more effective, comprehensive sex education program.

"More effective?" There's scant evidence for that. The studies I've seen show that sex ed is essentially a failure in most all its forms. Alas, the left still apparently thinks it can fix the problem of teen pregnancy and STDs by shoving condoms down the throats of freshmen. The reality is far more complicated.

Fried Catfish,

On an already low salary, they are usually forced to pay for classroom expenses out of their own pocket. After knowing many teachers, I can say that they belong to one of the LEAST self-interested professions. Cut them some slack.

I personally don't believe teachers are typically lazy or underworked, but the characterization of them as virtual saints is so laughable that it should make even the most dedicated activist blush. The truth is that teaching is one of the most highly paid professions on a per hour basis (getting three months off really tilts the curve), and most people who teach don't see it as charity work. It's a job.

I appreciate good teachers. I've had more than a few in my day. However, I can't subscribe to this view that they're all Mother Theresa, staying on for the children while better jobs are just waiting for them in the private sector. That's not reality.

You know, people should have some firsthand experience before they mouth off. Since my aunt, my sister-in-law, my wife, my brother, other family members and I are/were teachers, I can tell you that having three months off is inaccurate. Technically, no, teachers are not paid for that time. But they work nonetheless, preparing for the next year. Teachers I know never were satisfied and continually reworked their materials and syllabus over the summer. Then, there's the continuing development, whether it's summer school for a master's or Ph.D. or reading research and other professional literature. (In the corporate world, you do this and can even get the company to pay for training or further education. Teachers don't.)

During the school year, it's worse. I left teaching for many reasons, not the least of which was pay. I made more as an intern that my brother did after 7 years of teaching. And don't even talk about health insurance. I worked harder as a teacher than I do in the corporate setting and was paid far less.

When I graded papers, I spent an average of 40 minues on each. In many cases, I put more time into their work than the students did. I had a choice: work an extra 1-2 hours every night after I ate dinner or work over the weekend. The thing is that I loved it because it is incredibly satisfying when someone "gets" it. Sure, there are bad teachers. There are idiots, just as there are in any profession. But most teachers that I knew and worked with put in more than 8-4:30 days.

Then, there's this kind of public slander. Who the hell would want to be a teacher? At least lawyers get paid well with all the crap that they take from people.

And, finally, note that Catfish wrote "they belong to one of the LEAST self-interested professions." That doesn't mean totally.

All,

I never said anything was wrong with being self-interested, (although that is not the case with selfishness, but I'm not saying teachers are selfish), I just pointed out that self interest applies to teachers as much as to anyone else. Hence, we should structure schools to align the teacher's incentives with providing educational excellence, just like we try to align workplace incentives with productivity.

I'm not saying teachers are any more prone to being lazy or slacking off than anyone else, and I have also had some wonderful and effective teachers. I'm just saying that it is as bad an idea to make teacher's unfireable as it is to make it impossible to remove any other worker for poor performance, and that offering bonuses for good work is just as good an idea for teachers as for employees elsewhere in the economy.

Sherk