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Are Teachers Overpaid and Underworked?

Are teachers overpaid and underworked?

  • Yes, they are overpaid and underworked

    Votes: 10 15.2%
  • No, they are not overpaid and underworked

    Votes: 56 84.8%

  • Total voters
    66
My how quickly we forget:



Not that it's a big deal, you're welcome to do so. It's fair game. So why can't you handle it when the sarcasm gets turned back around on you?

Thats not an insult ...

Thats pointing out flawed logic.
 
Do you want to act like an adult and discuss or do you want to keep insulting?

I am going to assume the former, so...

Over and Underpaid are fundamentally moral questions for this profession. The reason I say this is that teachers have a unique job where they are literally an investment in the long term future and prosperity of this nation. Public education is probably the PRIMARY reason for this country's prosperity and thus should be looked at from a perspective of the good of the nation and not simply market forces. Education is far more important than capitalism as it is one of the primary resources that a modern economy feeds off of to run well or else we would very likely reflect a third or second world country.

Despite what a market fundamentalist may claim, a market is a purely artificial social construct that will always reflect it social inputs to produce its outputs of wealth. And quite frankly, as a moral position, if a social construct is not furthering the society it finds itself in in terms of wealth, happiness, and other less tangible aspects, a better system should be devised. How our economy is constructed is not a moral question or one that is really even that important, but the end results are what matters.

Look, this is the problem. Overpaid/underpaid is not a moral question, it is a financial question. I would love it if people got paid for being morally good. The world would be a much different place. But it isn't like that. We don't live in a socialist fairyland where little magic elves grant wishes to the good boys and girls. In reality, people get paid not for being morally good but for bringing value to an employer who has money to pay them.

So is a teacher, or a doctor or a lawyer or a circus clown, underpaid or overpaid? This question only arises when the free market is not allowed to operate. In a free market, nobody is overpaid or underpaid. It's not a communistic calculus of ability versus needs. This kind of system sounds great on paper, but we are all familiar with the fact that this leads to economic stagnantion as it removes all incentive from people to do quality work.
 
you DO realize that Guy is just messing with folks, right?
 
Look, this is the problem. Overpaid/underpaid is not a moral question, it is a financial question. I would love it if people got paid for being morally good. The world would be a much different place. But it isn't like that. We don't live in a socialist fairyland where little magic elves grant wishes to the good boys and girls. In reality, people get paid not for being morally good but for bringing value to an employer who has money to pay them.

So is a teacher, or a doctor or a lawyer or a circus clown, underpaid or overpaid? This question only arises when the free market is not allowed to operate. In a free market, nobody is overpaid or underpaid. It's not a communistic calculus of ability versus needs. This kind of system sounds great on paper, but we are all familiar with the fact that this leads to economic stagnantion as it removes all incentive from people to do quality work.

The question always arises, because humans are not purely market beings, they have a heart and soul and beliefs on matters that they consider more important the economic questions, thus stuff like this will always be a moral question, due to human nature.

I find it interesting that you are arguing from extremes, that you see it as either free market or communistic where there are a whole range of social philosophies in the world. Can you perhaps bring your argument down from theory and address the real world with its range of human belief systems?
 
The question always arises, because humans are not purely market beings, they have a heart and soul and beliefs on matters that they consider more important the economic questions, thus stuff like this will always be a moral question, due to human nature.
This is why a purely market analysis of things rarely resonates with people. The market puts things in black and white, but most people don't think in those terms. There are standards other than cost/benefit to think about.
 
I am curious how you found this to be an insult.

What else are you doing when you sarcastically caricature my position and trivialize my argument?

But look, it's fine, no problem.
 
There is no way in hell I'd ever become a teacher. No way! As far as I am concerned teachers don't make enough money as it is. If the feds and the state would leave it up to the local school board to let teachers, ah, you know, feckin teach, teachers would do a fine job.
 
This is why a purely market analysis of things rarely resonates with people. The market puts things in black and white, but most people don't think in those terms. There are standards other than cost/benefit to think about.

You are exactly right. People have trouble understanding how free market economics works because their minds are clouded by emotions. They are blinded to reason by overpowering irrational impulses that overwhelm good sense.
 
What else are you doing when you sarcastically caricature my position and trivialize my argument?

But look, it's fine, no problem.

No, I was pointing out that you simply can't redefine problems out of existence and expect to still be logical.
 
You are exactly right. People have trouble understanding how free market economics works because their minds are clouded by emotions. They are blinded to reason by overpowering irrational impulses that overwhelm good sense.

And this is why the economic "rational man" should be abandoned for actual psychological and sociological insight.
 
You are exactly right. People have trouble understanding how free market economics works because their minds are clouded by emotions. They are blinded to reason by overpowering irrational impulses that overwhelm good sense.
No.

Maybe I'm always messing with folks?
I hope you are, for your sake. It's no skin off my nose.
 
No, I was pointing out that you simply can't redefine problems out of existence and expect to still be logical.

Yeah, you were sarcastically pointing out what you perceive to be flaws in my argument. Then when I sarcastically point out the flaws in your argument you get all pissy about it. Come on.
 
Yeah, you were sarcastically pointing out what you perceive to be flaws in my argument. Then when I sarcastically point out the flaws in your argument you get all pissy about it. Come on.

I don't remember being sarcastic.

Oh well.

Lets just say your pee stream is longer and drop this side tangent. (this was real sarcasm)
 
If everyone started getting a better education, that would be great, even if it was applied unevenly.

The issue is that some people would see a marked decrease in their education, and its those people that I worry about.
 
End public schools and let the market allocate teacher salaries in a privatized educational system. That is the only way to ensure that teachers will neither be overpaid nor underpaid.

If education is privatized, teachers will be paid exactly what the market will bear.

Hahahaha yes... because when the market allocates salaries... people are never overworked or underpaid. Great logic there chap.
 
In some important respects it is far worse. I would say going off the gold standard was one of the big controobuting factors. But it is of really relevant to my point, becausE we've never had a pure free marks. Even when we were on a gold standar the tovt discriminated against women and minorities. So anything before the modem civil rights era is worthless.

First of all, please proof read what you post. It makes it easier for us to read.

Second of all, if you have no data about what a "pure" free market system would be like since there's never been one. Any opinion on what it would be like is conjecture, hope, and fairy dust. The point is, in a free market system there are winners and losers, and people get what they can afford. The children of the very poor would get a substandard education, if they got one at all, and would not be able to compete with the children of the very wealthy. There is no level playing field without equal access to education.
 
Good to see that most people here get it.

ETA: Of all things, I misvoted. The irony meter just exploded.
 
End public schools and let the market allocate teacher salaries in a privatized educational system. That is the only way to ensure that teachers will neither be overpaid nor underpaid.

If education is privatized, teachers will be paid exactly what the market will bear.

And somehow that's a good thing? At the turn of the 20th Century what the market would bear for factory workers was 15 cents an hour 16 hours a day with no time and a half for overtime, no workman's comp, no healthcare benefits, and no vacation, and no collective bargaining representation. But "what the market will bear" will somehow save us all.
 
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