Pennsylvania / Pittsburgh teacher salaries (credit, student loan, to buy)

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by kpoeppel

Could the college model work for public education? Not sure, but I do think there would be much less bitterness on the part of both teachers and taxpayers. Teachers wouldn't feel they were getting skrewed by the public, and visa versa. Some food for thought anyways...

Unfortunately, the college model won't work for basic education. The economic problem is basically this: the primary beneficiaries of the child's basic education are the child as an adult and the future people who will be affected by the child as an adult (including that adult's fellow taxpayers, employers, neighbors, and so on). So, there is really no one in place to serve as an appropriate buyer for the child's educational services in a conventional market transaction, since the beneficiaries either are not yet of age to participate in such transactions (the children themselves) or too diffuse and ill-defined at the present time (those other future stakeholders). Accordingly, the only real solution is basically for the state to step in and act as a buyer of educational services on the child's behalf.

Now once the child becomes an adult, he or she can take over being the buyer, and there are ways to get around the problem of the benefits occuring in the future (e.g., the student can take out loans). Again, though, until the child is an adult, that approach isn't feasible, which is why you can't use the same system for basic education as we use for college.

[zip95]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Unfortunately, the college model won't work for basic education. The economic problem is basically this: the primary beneficiaries of the child's basic education are the child as an adult and the future people who will be affected by the child as an adult (including that adult's fellow taxpayers, employers, neighbors, and so on). So, there is really no one in place to serve as an appropriate buyer for the child's educational services in a conventional market transaction, since the beneficiaries either are not yet of age to participate in such transactions (the children themselves) or too diffuse and ill-defined at the present time (those other future stakeholders). Accordingly, the only real solution is basically for the state to step in and act as a buyer of educational services on the child's behalf.

Now once the child becomes an adult, he or she can take over being the buyer, and there are ways to get around the problem of the benefits occuring in the future (e.g., the student can take out loans). Again, though, until the child is an adult, that approach isn't feasible, which is why you can't use the same system for basic education as we use for college.

You over-thought yourself into a corner. It's way less complicated than that.

It's an investment, by the parents, in the childs future.....people do this all the time....it's no big deal. Just search for "good school district" on these very forums, and you will see how often people make this very investment.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by zip95

You over-thought yourself into a corner. It's way less complicated than that.

It isn't just me--people have been studying and thinking about the issue of how to finance basic education for a long time, and they keep coming back to the same fundamental problem.

It's an investment, by the parents, in the childs future.....people do this all the time....it's no big deal. Just search for "good school district" on these very forums, and you will see how often people make this very investment.

But that's just the problem: the parents are not the ones who get most of the "return" on this investment, but rather the child and the other future stakeholders in the child as an adult get most of the "return". So what relatively wealthy parents are doing when they pay for a private school education, or they move to a place where housing is relatively expensive but the locally-funded public schools are good, is giving their children an expensive but worthy gift (like buying a stock or bond and giving it to the child).

Which of course is fine--you can't tell parents not to give gifts to their children. The problem is that many parents are not relatively wealthy, and they cannot afford to give their children such an expensive gift. Moreover, they often cannot borrow money for this purpose, precisely because they won't get the return on the investment. Also, unfortunately some parents are not good parents, and they won't give their children such a gift even if they can afford it.

Again, this wouldn't be such a problem if, say, young children could borrow money to pay for their own educations. But they can't, so unless they have relatively wealthy and generous parents, they are left without anyone willing and/or able to make this investment on their behalf--unless the state steps in.

And seriously, none of this is new. People figured this all out long ago, and that is why there has been public education for a long time.

[zip95]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

It isn't just me--people have been studying and thinking about the issue of how to finance basic education for a long time, and they keep coming back to the same fundamental problem.



But that's just the problem: the parents are not the ones who get most of the "return" on this investment, but rather the child and the other future stakeholders in the child as an adult get most of the "return". So what relatively wealthy parents are doing when they pay for a private school education, or they move to a place where housing is relatively expensive but the locally-funded public schools are good, is giving their children an expensive but worthy gift (like buying a stock or bond and giving it to the child).

Which of course is fine--you can't tell parents not to give gifts to their children. The problem is that many parents are not relatively wealthy, and they cannot afford to give their children such an expensive gift. Moreover, they often cannot borrow money for this purpose, precisely because they won't get the return on the investment. Also, unfortunately some parents are not good parents, and they won't give their children such a gift even if they can afford it.

Again, this wouldn't be such a problem if, say, young children could borrow money to pay for their own educations. But they can't, so unless they have relatively wealthy and generous parents, they are left without anyone willing and/or able to make this investment on their behalf--unless the state steps in.

And seriously, none of this is new. People figured this all out long ago, and that is why there has been public education for a long time.

That's not the situation today at all.

Today, these issues are solved with vouchers, cyber schools, and other free-market private institutions. The state will fund parents somewhere close to 20K to send a child to one of these incipient schools.

The problem is that this is just getting started, and of course, the teachers unions are fighting school choice tooth and nail.

[right-here-i-say]

It all comes down to the fact that the teachers unions care more about salaries, benefits, pensions, and having every known holiday off, than they do about our children's education. This is EASILY seen, because:

1. They do not have year round schooling like the rest of the world is doing. I remember going through garbage, getting in trouble at the mall, eating pizza and watching pornos each summer from age 8-16 (until I was old enough to get a job). The last month of school was worthless because all I could wait for was summer, and the first month of school was just trying to get back into the state of mind I had in April.
2. The higher the salaries, the lower the number of teachers and activities. I hear a lot about music/art being cut, but has anyone cut a guaranteed pension?

[kpoeppel]

Originally Posted by zip95

That's not the situation today at all.

Today, these issues are solved with vouchers, cyber schools, and other free-market private institutions. The state will fund parents somewhere close to 20K to send a child to one of these incipient schools.

The problem is that this is just getting started, and of course, the teachers unions are fighting school choice tooth and nail.

Exactly. Most parents can't afford to pay for college, either. And yet their children can get a college education via scholarships, low-interest government loans, government grants, etc. The system is quite fair and good, in my opinion. You don't have large numbers of people in school that don't really want to be there. In public schools, the slackers, scumbags, and underachievers just make life miserable for the students who want to learn (and the teachers who want to teach rather than babysit).

In college, you don't have teachers who are just there to pick up a paycheck...they generally do research in their fields and are usually enthusiastic about what they teach. If they don't do a good job, they're gone.

[Pitts10yrs]

Plus to add public schools are funded by taxes, and the peoples money is easily spent, and if there is not enough just raise taxes. Its kinda like a large unsupervised bowl of candy and people just walk by and take what they want.

The highest paid teachers are the ones who have been there, from what I've seen, over 20 years. From my observations they are also the most difficult and least motivated to teach. They appear to gravitate to the lower grades, elementary schools, simply because they can get away with little to no teaching. Of course this is all changing since they are being held more accountable. But, in general new hires, younger teachers, are more motivated, and also connect better with the students better. Not to say that there are not good older teachers, but burnout is high after a few years.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by zip95

That's not the situation today at all.

Today, these issues are solved with vouchers, cyber schools, and other free-market private institutions. The state will fund parents somewhere close to 20K to send a child to one of these incipient schools.

Again, I am not opposed to measures which open up more competition in the provision of public education services, such as vouchers and other school choice programs. But such measures don't solve the government-as-price-setter problem, because typically the state still ends up being the price-setter (e.g., through the amount of the voucher).

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by kpoeppel

Exactly. Most parents can't afford to pay for college, either. And yet their children can get a college education via scholarships, low-interest government loans, government grants, etc. The system is quite fair and good, in my opinion.

But again, young children can't take out loans. It is true, though, that college is not really a pure private market environment either, given things like public universities, subsidized loans, endowments, grants, and so on.

You don't have large numbers of people in school that don't really want to be there. In public schools, the slackers, scumbags, and underachievers just make life miserable for the students who want to learn (and the teachers who want to teach rather than babysit).

Young children are also in no position to be deciding for themselves whether they need to go to school.

In college, you don't have teachers who are just there to pick up a paycheck...they generally do research in their fields and are usually enthusiastic about what they teach. If they don't do a good job, they're gone.

Unfortunately, many colleges have very little in the way of quality control when it comes to teaching, and too often teaching plays little real role in determining who gets tenure.

[BrianTH]

By the way, if the issue is the overall magnitude of teacher's salaries, then school choice programs may not be the answer. For example, the statistics I have seen suggest that charter schools tend to actually spend a bit more than traditional public schools on teacher salaries (the base salaries are roughly the same or even just a bit lower for charter schools, but charter schools tend to make more use of merit-pay and extra pay for hard-to-staff subjects, which pushes them ahead overall).