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The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers
Mr. Chetty and his colleagues — one of whom, Emmanuel Saez, recently won the prize for the top research economist under the age of 40 — estimate that a standout kindergarten teacher is worth about $320,000 a year. That’s the present value of the additional money that a full class of students can expect to earn over their careers. This estimate doesn’t take into account social gains, like better health and less crime.
I have a problem with the math.
A child is in class just one year and we would like to route all his/her extra lifetime career gains directly to the teacher? Why would we want to do that?
Shouldn't we be letting the child keep at least some of those gains? Let's say the child works 30 years for the child and the teacher worked 1 year for that child. Maybe the outstanding teacher should therefore be getting about 3% of $320,000 and the child should be getting the other 97%. Perhaps the standout teacher therefore deserves an extra $10,000. Wouldn't that seem a bit more fair?
Let's say someone does a study to show how much more money you can earn if you go to college over the amount of money you can earn in a lifetime if you don't go. The colleges then set the amount of tuition to be that exact amount. Based on the rise in tuition costs, I'd say they are certainly trying! If they ultimately succeed, would it still be useful to spend 4 years in college and take on a lifetime's worth of debt?
Let's say a study shows that buying a child an entire encyclopedia set at an early age would increase the lifetime earnings of that child by $100,000? Would it then seem rational if encyclopedia set prices were set at $100,000? Or should we just let the free markets decide what encyclopedia sets should cost?
I'm not trying to argue that outstanding teachers aren't worth a great deal to society. If I had my way I'd certainly pay them more than many in the financial services industry. I clearly don't have what it takes to be a prize winning economist though. I think "The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers" is a bit ridiculous.
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6 comments:
It is ridiculous. I've been a teacher. Counting student, substitute, and professional teaching, I've taught at every grade level from 1st through sophomore college.
What if a kid just has an off day for the SAT, or any other test or paper for that matter? Exactly what can the teacher do about it? Nothing.
The idea that the teacher should be rewarded based on the performance of the students is ludicrous. The thought that a teacher should be paid based on the life's earnings potential of any student is obscene.
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs both dropped out of college. Hell, Richard Branson dropped out of high school. All of them are multi-billionaires. You think any of their teachers could have predicted that? I don't. If anything they were the reason these guys dropped out in the first place.
This is nothing but a bunch of educational hierarchy claptrap. Teachers get three months paid vacations. Their salary is irrelevant compared to that.
GawainsGhost,
Please tell us what you really think. Don't hold back, lol. ;)
In all seriousness, I obviously agree with you.
Perhaps we should start paying everyone using cost benefit analysis.
For example, what's a garbage collector worth? Well, as a group they have the ability to nearly shut down an entire city if they went on strike. Maybe we should pay them a LOT more just to be safe.
Or how about the flight crew of a 747? If they went on strike in mid-flight, I'd say they'd be worth a few hundred million dollars for the plane plus a million dollars here and there for the passengers. I'm not talking annual salary here. I'm talking about their worth over the course of the next few hours. That's assuming the crew truly wished to be martyrs and told a convincing story in the salary negotiations.
How about the IRS tracks the kids, and the teacher gets some of their pension based on the performance of their classes income-wise.
Red A,
Some of the "smartest" kids seem to have so little income though. It's like it just vanishes or something.
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Mark,
The Kindergarten teacher knows that his/her income depends on teaching the smart kids some morals and ethics...no?
I figure the optimum would be to have your class become welders/nurses/dentists?
Red A,
If maximizing income is the priority, then morals, ethics, and productive skills could be taught before lunch to those who learn it quickly. The afternoon could then be spent teaching the world's oldest profession, gold digging, finance, politics, and high pressure sales tactics to the rest.
Just a thought. Sigh.
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