Dick Startz, one of our favorite economists, didn't like yesterday's "hole in the bucket" pdq. (But he did like the song!)
Here's what he said:
If you compare Finnish teacher salaries to Finnish college grad salaries and do the same for Americans, you'll find American teachers would need a 42 percent raise to match Finnish levels.
We're sorry we didn't compare salaries of American teachers to those of other American college grads (that does seem like a fair comparison for judging a professions' ability to compete for and retain talent) when we linked to a comparison of American and Finnish teachers' salaries. (Here's a fitting song to reinforce our apology!)
We do believe that teachers' salaries should be higher and that competitive salaries would help attract the talent we need to this challenging profession...We just want to get past the idea that it's OK to throw up our hands about improving teacher quality until that great day when salaries are sufficiently high.
Julie Greenberg
Here's what he said:
If you compare Finnish teacher salaries to Finnish college grad salaries and do the same for Americans, you'll find American teachers would need a 42 percent raise to match Finnish levels.
We're sorry we didn't compare salaries of American teachers to those of other American college grads (that does seem like a fair comparison for judging a professions' ability to compete for and retain talent) when we linked to a comparison of American and Finnish teachers' salaries. (Here's a fitting song to reinforce our apology!)
We do believe that teachers' salaries should be higher and that competitive salaries would help attract the talent we need to this challenging profession...We just want to get past the idea that it's OK to throw up our hands about improving teacher quality until that great day when salaries are sufficiently high.
Julie Greenberg