Rationalamerican: Teacher Pay And Unions

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Teacher Pay And Unions

Last edited October 2003, Last reviewed September 2007

Teachers are paid too much. Teachers are paid too little. Get a group of Americans together and you'll hear one opinion or the other when you inquire, plus you'll get a personal example to show how a particular bad teacher earns too much or a particular good teacher earns too little. Both sides of the argument miss the point entirely. Teachers are not paid too much or too little, they are paid incorrectly.

With a legally and socially entrenched compulsory teacher union and with a bureaucratic management system reminiscent of an 18th century factory, it is a small wonder that there are problems with the way public school teachers are compensated. Many teachers demand respect as "professionals" on one side of their mouth, then on the other side of their mouth support their "union reps" as they negotiate for higher salary pay scales and special perks based on seniority. Other teachers are simply caught in the crossfire as the union they are forced by law to join takes liberties with their career and their union dues. In the meantime, public school administrators and board members develop an "us versus them" mentality that poisons any chance for a positive mentoring relationship.

The truth is, some teachers are paid too much and some are paid too little. Since teachers are compensated according to a pay scale based on years of service, and since tenure and other rules allow bad apples to continue teaching year after year, it is likely that there will be bad teachers who are paid too much. By the same token, since a school district is restricted to a negotiated pay scale it is likely that some newer teachers who may well deserve higher pay for their extraordinary efforts are not compensated enough. School administrators are not free to compensate their teachers according to ability or other factors pertinent to their particular circumstances, so it is perfectly understandable how mis-compensation can occur.

Suppose we could magically make the unions and the tenure and the seniority pay scales disappear overnight-wouldn't we leave teachers open to abuse by district administrators who could hold a grudge? Plus, how can we possibly judge the ability of teachers? By the test scores of their students? Isn't that unfair, since an individual teacher might be assigned a difficult or lower performing group of children in one year or another? These are all issues that, outside of the cloistered world of public education, are faced and mastered every day. The free market is remarkable in its capacity to reward smart behavior and punish stupid behavior over the long term.

For example, imagine a CPA working for an accounting firm. A CPA is a comparable type of professional to a teacher, since both have very specific educational requirements for their jobs, and both work within a large pool of professionals with similar backgrounds and similar job functions. This particular CPA finds that her superior has taken a personal disliking to her and, as a result, he has spoken poorly of her to his colleagues and taken pains to assign her some of the more difficult cases in the firm. In spite of her excellent work, her superior has blocked her opportunity for advancement and kept her salary low. She is devastated and unhappy, of course, so what are her options? In the real world, several paths are possible. First, she is likely to look around for a different firm. Since her skills are readily transferable and because the market for CPAs is substantial, she has a good chance of finding work elsewhere and leaving her slob boss behind. Should the next incoming CPA repeat her experience at the original firm, the higher-level management at that firm is likely to take action against her original slob boss. If they do not, then a whole bunch of unhappy and unproductive employees are likely to lead that firm into oblivion. Justice will be served.

A second possibility is that she will make an effort to go around her slob boss by using paths of communication put in place by upper management concerned about making employment at their firm fair and reasonable. They know that happy employees are productive employees. If successful, her slob boss will be taken down a notch or removed. Justice will again be served. If unsuccessful, she will likely look around for a different job. The point of this simplified example is that when employees have the freewill to choose their own career destiny, and when there is a free market for employment within a specialty such as accounting--or teaching--then the market mechanisms will correct what needs to be corrected. If a principal is free to pay a teacher what he believes the individual is worth, then teacher compensation will begin to reflect market value. A smart principal will reward not by test scores of students, but by the daily evidence observed every day in the classroom. It's called management. Excellent teachers who make the extra effort to reach difficult students or to make adjustments for advanced students will demand higher pay and they will receive it or move on. Poor teachers will find themselves faced with the choice of improving or losing pay. Teachers who find themselves feeling trapped by the injustices of poor administrators will move on to better managed districts or find ways to communicate the injustices to boards of education or to parents and politicians. Parents, politicians and board members who hear of monkey business by poor administrators will search for better management.

Of course, we cannot make unions and tenure and seniority pay scales disappear overnight. However, a good start might be to change the National Labor Relations Act and other federal labor laws that award organized unions their coercive monopoly as the collective bargaining agent for their members. If membership in unions for teachers and other workers is made voluntary, then we can take the first steps toward correcting the distortions in the employment marketplace. Given the ability to negotiate for themselves, teachers can lead the way toward a free employment market. Perhaps someday we can pay good teachers and bad teachers what they are truly worth.

To cite this article:

Painter, John. Teacher Pay And Unions. (October 2003). Retrieved month x, 2xxx, from

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