The reason there is a perceived problem with the supply of public school teachers is because there is a perception among some people (some of whom even contribute to this forum) that:

1) public school teachers *must* have a minimum “education level”
2) all kids *must* go to school
2a) from about the ages of 6 to 16
2b) for about a minimum of six hours per day,
2c) for about a minimum of 180 days per year

IOW, the “shortage” is a natural consequence of the political policy of protectionism for the public education unions. Is that what you meant by “our society decided ..”?

Without such political interventionism the number of parents seeking education services for their kids, as well as the number of teachers required to provide such services, would be drastically REDUCED.

Of course some people consider a rational expression of consumer preference to be “sub-optimal”. Perhaps such individuals would also like to see the US government optimize the number of American-made autos and fast-food burgers purchased each year?

As for your hunch that the market price of public school teachers is actually *greater* than what they’re now being paid, I find that very questionable. Back in my day, Catholic school teachers were Nuns who did a pretty competent job for VERY LITTLE money.

But how should I know? The Sisters never taught us economics.

“Our society” – well, that is the inference I draw from the fact that the voters in Calif voted to spend 40% of state spending on K-12 education, and that said spending has long been the single largest category of state spending in California and, I’m sure, every other state.

PS: If it makes you feel any better, even if public school teachers’ salaries were set by supply and demand, they would almost certainly be higher than those of private school teachers, as well as most workers with equivalent education. That is because the supply of public school teachers is probably “lower” than that of private school teachers and other similarly educated workers. (But, not as “low” as the supply of prison guards or police officers, to name two other sets of public employees).

I hope that makes you feel better.

None.

I had dinner last night with a School district employee – not OUSD. She mentioned that there were 30 white kids in the large high school she worked at. We wondered what was wrong with those families. She said Algebra was required even though half of the students were not suitable for an algerba class and simply failed the class continuously until “graduation”. The school felt forced to continuously re-enroll these failures because it was a “required” course. It doesn’t occur to them to just ignore stupid regs since the kids in question can’t ever pass the class or the tests.

Prole students flee the schools constantly (the campus has no perceived value to them) but when they do the school reports them to welfare and their parent(s) welfare grant is cut. The kids are produced by the parent(s) to get the grant restored and immediately the child flees the school again. I have no problem with that concept. The school is a place of humiliation and inappropriate placement, a dangerous place filled with gang soldiers. Her school is designated for the principal gang in the area, their adversary gang members go to another high school. This segregation is crucial because gang members are more than occasionally ordered to attack and kill rival gangsters and may not refuse to do so. The schools have accordingly been segregated by gangs. This is another thing you will not see on the school webpage, along with the Herpes rate.

At least in the gang issues the schools are no longer trying to be PC and expect everybody to get along.

These urban public school districts stopped educating years ago. Only those who want to believe can be fooled anymore.

So I am not voting for any tax increases for more of the same of this. I believe the time has come to close these districts and widely disperse the urban chillun into independent schools, with no civil service employees. I’d use the districts to keep the records for the independents so they can go in and out of business as needed with the student records and test scores maintained by the government. Perhaps allow the districts to administer standardized testing so the schools cannot rig their scores.

Brave New World.

I thought I took pains to make clear that I was not expressing an opinion re the propriety of current teacher wages.

To clarify, if the provision of education were left solely to the market, there would be no such thing as a free education. Instead, as is the case with most products, only those who could afford an education would get one. In other words, the market would produce far fewer “educatiins” than it does now.

Long ago, our society decided that such an outcome would be both inequitable — because poor kids would not get educated — and suboptimal — because society would be better off (including vastly richer) if more kids were educated. That is called a “market failure.” In such circumstances, the government must intervene in the market. None of this is my opinion. Rather, it is high school-level economics and is no more controversial than the law of supply and demand itself.

Thus, the fact that most goods are produced by the market and most workers paid according to supply and demand (except for minimum wage laws) says little about whether it is just or poor policy to pay teachers a wage above that that would begenerated by the laws of supply and demand.

Once again we see someone wanting to use public education as a *political* institution. In this case, to use it to set a floor beneath teacher wages and to “fix” what he perceives to bw a flaw in the law of supply and demand.

How and when did public education acquire such a grand mission? Indeed, that one seems to trump public education’s original mission to teach kids how to read.

Optima?! The problems of public education can be solved through intelligent application of matrix algebra.

You say that “[i]n the real world, wages are a function of supply and demand, with premiums awarded based on objective measures of productivity. Not on what you or some elected official believes workers *should* make.”

That is not entirely true. Governments often intervene in markets when markets fail to produce the amount of specific goods and services that society deems equitiable or socially optimal. The production of K-12 education is one obvious example — consumers are not free to choose whether to purchase a K-12 education, but rather are compelled to do so. (Similarly, car owners are compelled to purchase insurance and smog checks). Moreover, education has massive positive externalities, so that, were it left to the market, the market would produce an amount of education that is far less than that which is socially optimal.

So, it is poor economics to argue that it is inappropriate to set teacher salaries at a level higher than that set by the market. (Note: This is not say to whether the current level of teacher salaries is either above or below what is socially optimal).

A simple x52 calculation provides a pretty accurate annual figure.

I’m guessing that a public school teacher’s nominal work day is <= 7 hours. We don't credit "professional" employees for the "extra" time they voluntarily put in at home or by coming in on weekends.

The point is that teacher salaries only *appear* low due to politically motivated manipulation of statistics.

A $50,000 per year teacher works about 36 weeks (as you stated). To a reasonable approximation, that teacher is actually making $72,000.

Guessing again, but I believe a public education administrator, district spokesperson, etc works a more “traditional” work year. By that measure the $88K spokesman is making just a little more than the teacher, and the difference could possibly be attributed to the differnces in length of work day, the number of paid holidays, and so forth.

Again though, what really matters to taxpayers is our real, discounted, current TOTAL out-of-pocket expense (sal+ben+pers).

As for your believing that public employees are entitled to some sort of professional-level minimum wage, that is politicizing labor. In the real world, wages are a function of supply and demand, with premiums awarded based on objective measures of productivity. Not on what you or some elected official believes workers *should* make.