Overpaid Teachers?!?

Anybody still think there is "greed and excess" in our schools?

In the table below, I present the results from the previous post, along with the public/private gap when educators are left out. The models control for work schedules (hours and weeks), state, gender, experience, and education. The details are in the table stub, if you’re interested.

The results show that excluding teachers and professors does mitigate the public/private earnings gap – reducing the “advantage” for private sector workers from 20.2 percent to 14.2 percent – but the difference remains large.

This illustrates the fact that more educated, highly-skilled workers – such as teachers and professors - suffer a more substantial earnings penalty for government work. When a large group of the most educated workers is excluded – i.e., educators – the gap is narrower. But it is still huge – around 14 cents on the dollar.

So, it is certainly true that educators are “responsible” for part of the public/private earnings gap. They are the dominant public employee group, and would therefore exert considerable influence on the results, no matter what.

Nevertheless, with or without teachers and professors, public employees’ wage and salary earnings are substantially lower than those of comparable private sector workers. [emphasis mine]

But, but, but... GOLD-PLATED BENEFITS!!!