I earn a low six figure income. I make (taxable equivalent) almost twice what the highest paid educator on Scott's scale makes. Does that mean that I am more highly paid than any teacher in the Gilbert school district?
Not exactly. I work an absolute minimum of 12 hours a day/7days a week for 344 days out of the year. When you factor in overtime, combat pay, vacation pay, etc, I make $17.60 hr, at the most (I'm not paid overtime after 60 hrs/week and I work a lot of 90-105 hr weeks which reduces the hourly rate commensurately).
The absolute lowest pay level for a starting teacher in Scott's district is $24.57 an hour ($35,380 per year / 1440 hrs (180 8 hr classroom days)).
So who makes more, me or the lowest level starting teacher?
The Dept of Labor's 2002 "National Compensation Survey: Occupational Wages in the United States", found that the average elementary school teacher made $30.75 per hour and high school teachers made $31.01.
That was just below physicists ($32.17), computer scientists ($32.86), electrical engineers ($34.97), dentists ($35.51), nuclear engineers ($36.16), and lawyers ($44.02).
It was above chemists ($30.68), mechanical engineers ($29.45), civil engineers ($29.34), architects ($28.85), and biologists ($28.07).
These numbers don't factor in the benefits typically available to teachers, medical, prescriptions, dental, vision, retirement, and life insurance, usually much better than private sector jobs, all of which add (sometimes considerably) to the wage base. They also don't factor the (usual) tenure involved. Having a virtual guarantee of job security is a difficult factor to put a dollar figure on, but it is certainly worth a great deal.
Not too bad for union labor.
Comparing U.S. teachers wages to those of other countries can be very misleading. Firstly, in many countries the school year is considerably longer, so again the calculation should be broken down to hourly wages to make it apples to apples.
Comparing the wages of other jobs in other countries is also often misleading "and pay teachers the similar to doctors, lawyers etc.". Doctors in countries with socialized medicine usually make considerably less than their American counterparts. In 2004 the average German doctor made $56,000 a year for instance. It's not surprising that teachers made similar salaries. Average lawyers in the U.S. don't make that much more than teachers, but in foreign countries there is usually not just a job description of "lawyer" where to pass a bar exam the student has to know every facet of the law. "Lawyers" in foreign countries generally only know one area and are considerably less educated than their U.S. counterparts overall. Think barrister and solicitor in the UK for instance, both are "lawyers" according to our definition, but they are actually two different professions with different training.
Expecting total teacher pay to come anywhere close to professional pay in the U.S. (doctors, lawyers. etc) is unrealistic on grounds other than hours worked as well. Med, Law, and Engineering schools have intense competition among high performing students for entry. They are often the sorts of ambitious personalities who prefer to work in high pressure competitive jobs where working much harder and much longer hours results in a higher total salary and advancement.
That would make teaching, a job where higher income is based almost exclusively on credentials and years of experience, an entirely unsuitable profession for those high achievers.
That credential/experience pay structure, initiated largely as a result of contract negotiations by the teacher's unions, has been a problem for decades. In their 2003 study: "Pulled Away or Pushed Out? Explaining the Decline of Teacher Aptitude in the United States", Hoxby and Leigh of Harvard found that (since the '60s) "...the inability of teachers to make more money by performing better has been the main cause of significant declines in the academic abilities of those who have entered the teaching profession."
I would predict failure for the "new pay system" ideas put forth in Scott's district for exactly the reasons he outlined and more.
They have the right basic premise, better pay for better performance (merit pay), it's in the system of measurement that their ideas fail. It's really not that difficult a problem from a practical/statistical standpoint.
You first establish a baseline from last year's work. In other words, what percentile did the fifth grade class you are about to inherit test in last year compared to other fifth graders and compared to their performance in fourth grade? A statistician would include a great deal more than just that to take care of outliers, variations, kids arriving or leaving in the middle of the year, etc, but that's basically what the end result would be.
If (for instance) your new six grade class tested at the 50th percentile in fifth grade, and tested at the 55th percentile when you finished with them, you were a heck of a teacher and would strongly deserve a bonus. No standardised tests, no parent/student/admin evaluations, strictly performance. If they tested at median again (50th percentile) then you have taught them what was required, better than some teachers and not as well as others (who lost ground) and you would be paid commensurately.
It sounds a little complicated to those not familiar with statistics, but it's not really that difficult.
Merit pay could work, but it would be a radical change from the current system, strongly opposed by the unions and by those who fear they wouldn't stack up well against their peers.
