Not too long ago, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan proposed a sizable bump in pay for primary and secondary teachers in the United States. He suggested a base starting salary of $60,000 for incoming teachers — part of an effort to get some of the best and the brightest out of the endless sea of unemployed college graduates — and a maximum potential salary of $150,000. That’s a pretty sizable increase considering the median pay for ALL teachers is somewhere around $52,000. The idea, of course, is that giving the teachers more financial compensation will inspire them to offer a better education to their students.
Now, I can’t fault Secretary Duncan for wanting to shell out more cash to those who are forced to put up with and try to teach the prepubescents and adolescents in this society. I can think of many of my former teachers who would deserve such a sizable increase in their pay. Where I disagree with him is in his efforts to suggest a measure that would never get enacted in the majority of the country and in the faulty logic his suggestion uses.
It was nice that Duncan called for an increase in teacher pay. I’m sure the National Education Association — the largest teacher’s union in the country — will be absolutely ecstatic to read his words. It works out especially well for him, President Obama and the rest of the president’s administration because, when nothing ever comes of his suggestion, they will have the luxury of being able to pass the blame on to someone else.
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of public school funding in this country comes from the local level, and more often than not it comes in the form of property taxes collected by city and county governments. Given the state of the economy and the downfall of the housing market in the United States, property tax revenues are going down. School districts are already having problems making payroll for their faculty at current pay rates and others cannot afford to even buy enough textbooks for all of their students. Numerous state legislators around the country are standing around, scratching their heads, and wondering where in the world they’re going to get enough money to bridge the gaps in their budgets. How exactly are they supposed to come up with the cash for six-figure teacher salaries? Raise taxes? Yeah. Right. The Tea Ba … err … I mean Tea Party would be tossing desks and rulers into the nearest body of water in protest faster than Sarah Palin could name a Supreme Court case. O.K., that was a bad example.
The general lack of funds necessary to implement this plan is one thing, but the real failed logic behind the plan stands out even more.
There is no doubt that the working premise of this scheme is to give teachers more incentive to be better at educating their students. While the idea may sound rather good on the surface, the fact of the matter is that the logic behind it is tragically, tragically flawed.
I certainly will not try to tell you that the majority of teachers in the United States are bad at what they do. Most are quite capable of educating their students to the standards that have been set by governing bodies, and there are even some that are able to excel and inspire their students to go the extra mile. Others, however, just plain stink, and tossing a bunch of money at them is not going to make the situation any better.
New York and other states have actually tried to increase teacher salaries in recent years as a means to spur a rise in test scores. Such efforts have failed to show any real results. Bad and/or ineffective teachers around the country are more or less secure because of their tenured status. Thanks to the NEA, it almost takes an act of Congress to terminate a teacher’s employment for any reason other than improper conduct with a student — though such situations seem to be on the rise as of late.
In the end, I can’t help but look at Secretary Duncan’s suggestion as anything more than a simple exercise in pandering. His shameless disregard for the facts that nothing will ever come of the proposal due to infrastructural and financial constraints and that this strategy has largely proven to be ineffective makes the truth clear: He wasn’t trying to do anything but garner NEA support and secure votes for his president.
— Derek Mullins is a senior in political science. He can be reached at dmullin5@utk.edu.
