Hacker News Reader

Comment by bobcostas55 | Hacker News Reader

Teachers are certainly not underfunded as a budget item. They're 1) well paid[0], and 2) there's no evidence that paying them more results in better outcomes.[1] That's mostly because teachers have almost no effect whatsoever: even the very best only improve student outcomes by a small amount, and the effect fades after a few years.[2]

On the other hand there's evidence that teacher collective bargaining wastes hundreds of billions annually.[3]

Just because they're not conspicuously wealthy does not mean that they're blameless or virtuous or unsuccessful as a special interest group.

[0] https://www.city-journal.org/html/no-teachers-are-not-underp...

[1] http://econweb.ucsd.edu/~kamurali/papers/Working%20Papers/Do...

[2] http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/19/teachers-much-more-than...

[3] https://www.nber.org/papers/w24782

View on HN

I see your cherry-picked articles, and I raise with my own cherry-picked articles.

http://time.com/money/5228237/teacher-pay-charts/

http://www.nea.org/home/12661.htm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/08/...

Of note, teacher salary comparisons should be made to those with similar education attainment and should take into account the many hours they spend working outside of the school day.

I didn’t read the articles and my point is not to agree or disagree with either side. Also, my mom is a retired teacher so take that bias as you will. I’m just adding another data point.

Teaching does have its downsides, but I know a lot of people who became teachers or stayed teachers (like my mom) because it can give you a great work life balance. You’re off during the summer when your kids are out of school and your holidays mostly correspond with thiers.

When we got married, we were an “instant family” - my wife had two kids. We also got laid off at the same time before we got married - we worked together. I ended up with a contract job and she ended up with a job with crazy hours (nights and some weekends). That didn’t work for us. She took a significant pay cut to work in the school system at a job she liked a lot more and she had the same schedule as our sons.

She has a stable job with good - expensive benefits. That allowed me to jump around from contract to perm back to contract and chase jobs solely for the money without worrying about benefits or the stability of the company.

I know a small business owner whose wife works in the school system for the same reason - benefits.

There are other non monetary benefits to being a teacher - especially in a two income household.

I personally like the school voucher idea Trump was proposing during his campaign... Each student is given a voucher, as good as cash, and schools compete for students, leaving the decision to families on which school to go to. This also brings students that live in poor neighborhoods the opportunity to travel to a better school perhaps outside their district. Schools might even buy new buses and pick up students further away if it means getting their voucher money.

Man, if you could cash that voucher in for other educational materials, that would be an idea. What a library I could have had... Even in the broke, rural, low-cost-of-living area I came out of, the last school budget works out to more than $14k/year per student, mostly funded by local taxes.

It would be competitive too, and certain schools could target special needs children or problem children. Online schools could be possible too. I could see it being VERY economical.

And that leaves poor, sometimes young kids taking long bus rides to other parts of town. The more affluent districts are already well funded enough. Those parents are going to do everything they can to keep “them” from thier schools.

I would rather take a bus a half hour to school rather than get stuck in a poor school district with bad teachers and students in similar conditions. It would be nice to have the option to take your kid out of that environment.

You’re not six years old and catching a bus from the side of my metro area - where the school system lost accredition to the side where the median income is over $100K - takes over an hour and a half in traffic. Both districts are considered in the same MSA (metropolitan statistical area).

If there's demand for something close by, then the market will provide it. The key point is, parents can make a decision with vouchers, rather than being forced to go to a particular school based on your district.

How much of the reason behind a failing school district is because of the the school and how much of it is because of the environment, home life, etc?

If another school came in the same environment with the same socio-economic issues would the outcome be that much different?

The whole charter movement at least in the south is an attempt to funnel public money into private either for profit schools or “faith based education”.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com