Detroit Dilemma
Education is a service that benefits society. Educated people have better jobs, make more money and live in better neighborhoods. They are productive individuals whose higher paying jobs lead to increased tax revenue and already having much of what they need, educated people tend to commit less crime. Based on this, why are teachers' salaries so low in the United States?
The Associated Press recently reported that 1500 teachers in Detroit - who were forced to give up 5 days of pay to help balance the city budget - called in sick. This forced 53 schools in the area to close. These teachers couldn't understand why they are giving up some of their salaries to balance the budget, but at the same time principals are getting raises. The school board justified this action by comparing the salaries of principals that had recently been hired and those that had been in the system for a long period of time. Those that were just hired were earning more, and they felt that was a problem that needed to be corrected.
Is a teacher's salary equal to the benefits that education brings? Should they earn more money? Or do you think that the market for education is already in equilibrium therefore no change is needed?
2 comments:
Teachers should be paid more. Bottom line. Teachers have some of the hardest jobs in addition to having the most important jobs in our society.
The issue with the school board and the teachers in Detroit is an entirely different issue. This is the same city that due to budget concerns closed quite a few of their fire departments and police stations. Detroit is a wonderful city that has the potential to be great again but unfortunately has bad 'management'. Unfortunately this is effecting important services such as educating our young, putting out fires and policing the strees to keep crime to a minimum.
I have always thought teachers have the most important job and yet they get paid almost nothing. For many kids their teachers are more like their parents because they see them more. In my city the public schools recently had an emergency recession where the state comes in a runs the school. The cuts programs like athletics, new books, and bussing, until their reach a level where the school isn’t spending so much money. Coming from a town that is mostly blue collar workers whose jobs are leaving the community (Ford and a glass manufacturing plant are leaving this year) will experience our highest levels of unemployment in years with no hope of new jobs. You would hope that parents would want their kids to be well educated and go on to get a degree but the reality of it is that they want their kids to start working ASAP. By doing this their kids have a dull future a head of them.
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