A Bad Teacher Complains, Should we Care?

Back in high school I had an elective called “Adventures in Supercomputing” that was supposed to be focused on teaching students computer skills and encouraging technology related careers. In reality it was an hour excuse to play games and surf the primitive, at the time (around 1996), internet. I cannot think of what the grading criteria for this class was and there just wasn’t much to it other than showing up most of the time.

The worst part of this course was the teacher, who mostly taught remedial math courses, with whom I never had any earlier classroom interaction. This teacher was the sanctimonious type often bemoaning the plight of the impoverished school teacher and their own selfless commitment to the cause. A frequent assertion of this teacher was that they could make twice their salary if they worked somewhere else and there were no shortage of offers. This statement was inferring that this teacher was sacrificing their and their family’s well being on account of us students and was meant to indoctrinate the idea that teachers are not paid enough or fairly.

One of my least enduring qualities rears itself whenever I think I’m being badgered or hinted at incessantly or tire of the same tired argument again and again; I say something that is not very kind. After about halfway through the semester and another sermon from this teacher about mythical high paying jobs for a high school basic math instructor I snapped, got up from my desk and asked, “Why don’t you leave, why don’t you take one of those jobs? If we are soooooooo difficult and you can do soooooooo much better away from here, why are you here? I think we would be just fine with you making all that money at one of those jobs. I don’t think they even exist”. After about five minutes of the teacher staring at me intently while their face returned from a deep red, they attempted to explain it as a selfless act, a sacrifice even and that we students really needed them. I rolled my eyes and went back to looking up scores on ESPN.com. Surprisingly I received an A in that class, I did show up most of the time…

I was reminded of that story recently when a friend of my wife’s friend, who is a bad teacher, trotted out the “teachers are under and unfairly paid” trope and added “merit pay is bad” in a Facebook posting. It reminded me of that story because it was the clearest memory that I have of a horrible teacher complaining about not being rewarded for being horrible. It seems as though the most vocal teachers, complaining about pay and testing and any number of things, are usually inadequate and are poor at presenting their case in a way that does not anger observers.

First, are teachers unfairly or poorly compensated? In New Mexico, the average teacher salary is nearly 42 thousand dollars and comes from 31 percent of tax revenues directed towards education. This is for nine months of employment, accounting for 12 months this extrapolates to an equivalent of nearly 56 thousand dollars. That does not sound too bad. The unadjusted figure (42k) is almost four times the federal poverty line (11k) so it is hard to believe that teachers are impoverished. More to the point, being a teacher is a choice and it's not like those choosing to become teachers have no clue in regard to their earning potential. They knew what they were getting in to.

Most difficult is the fact that it is almost impossible to determine what is right for teacher pay. Because education is absolutely dominated by the public sector there is no reliable market for teachers so we have no way to determine the right salary, what is it really worth to the consumer? Ask any of the complainers and they don’t have an answer either. It seems as though there will never be a salary high enough and because bad, self-righteous teachers are never introspective they just do not know how bad their preening on this subject looks to the average citizen, many of who would love to make 40k a year and have three months off.

Another argument that makes teachers look bad is when they denounce merit pay tied to testing initiatives. It would be unfair to tie the salaries of teachers only to the testing results of their students without any other metrics or considerations but it is misguided to ignore them as an important piece. Questions arise when teachers seem so skeptical of testing and deny any share of culpability when the dropout rate approaches fifty percent and some who do graduate can’t even read.

Teachers are a fundamental part of our society and it is imperative that they are compensated fairly and treated with respect. Unfortunately the public sector dominated union infested education system we have will not allow for serious discussion. The public is told to shut up and hand over their wallets with no better results time and again. It is easy to think that it may be time to blow up the system and start from scratch.