tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post5692521031596950427..comments2024-03-22T02:15:56.280-07:00Comments on Jersey Jazzman: A Response To Critics Of My Research On NJ TeachersDukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-15961345463710818202020-07-25T12:52:26.315-07:002020-07-25T12:52:26.315-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.DeShawn Reedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08599364698134340361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-4986640117993143012020-07-24T10:43:06.049-07:002020-07-24T10:43:06.049-07:00"It's also odd to argue that I'm over..."It's also odd to argue that I'm overestimating the teacher wage gap because the top of the pay distribution for other workers is much higher than it is for teachers. The fact that a teacher in the highest pay quantile will never make what a similarly positioned lawyer makes doesn't much help the argument that teachers don't suffer from a wage gap."<br /><br />I think a difference between the public sector and private sector is that the private sector is higher risk, higher reward. When someone starts a business, odds are, that business will fail, and even if it lasts, it might have years of low profits during recessions. Yes, if the business succeeds the owner might become wealthy, but the odds are always against that happening. Even if the business comes out with a quality product, the business might still fail. For instance, some industries, like tech, are notoriously winner-take-all.<br /><br />A difference between teachers and college-educated private sector workers is that private sector workers include people who have been promoted and who perform a different task than they did when they started out their careers. <br /><br />Teachers enhance their skills and they should get salary increases as they gain experience, but, by definition, a teacher is still a teacher even after 20 years, whereas someone in the private sector might have a managerial role that comes with a higher salary because it carries more responsibility.<br /><br />When a teacher becomes a "manager," ie, assistant principal, principal, assistant superintendent, or superintendent, the ex-teacher indeed gets a higher salary, but that person is no longer considered a teacher and so the higher salary isn't baked into average salary data for teachers that you are using. <br /><br />If you were going to argue that education "managers," like superintendents, are underpaid, then I would agree with you. Roger Leon's base salary is $260,000, and he doesn't have a lot of job security. A CEO running a business as complex and large as the Newark Public Schools would get way more than that. <br /><br />Anyway, so I don't think the presence of high-income private sector outliers and their skewing of salary data, indicates that NJ teachers (as a class) are necessarily underpaid.<br /><br />StateAidGuyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00346914457455404884noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-20873147816952310802020-07-16T13:35:09.667-07:002020-07-16T13:35:09.667-07:00I updated the post because my last comment was inc...I updated the post because my last comment was incorrect. The data are censured, but only in aggregate reports. The microdata I use is not. But I stand by my main point: the highest paid teacher never comes close in salary to the highest paid non-teacher. So a median difference arguably masks another pay disparity between teachers and non-teachers.Dukehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-13432896965165699382020-07-15T19:27:03.806-07:002020-07-15T19:27:03.806-07:00Jeff, read the post. The data are censured. Those ...Jeff, read the post. The data are censured. Those 7 figure salaries aren't in the data. And again: how would you propose I specify a quantile regression? <br /><br />And once more: I am the one who brought up the private school teacher salaries potentially being part of the data. There's not a doubt in my mind SPC wouldn't have even considered the issue if I hadn't brought it up. I addressed it as best I could. If you think I've been dishonest... well, I find that sad. You've been a keen observer of NJ school finance in the past. Maybe someday we can have good faith arguments again about this stuff.Dukehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-19263095693297483512020-07-15T18:01:26.363-07:002020-07-15T18:01:26.363-07:00I think it's pretty basic why median compensat...<br />I think it's pretty basic why median compensation, not mean compensation, is the more accurate representation of what people are earning, since mean income includes high-income outliers. Since 24% of NJ's income is earned by the top 1%, using mean incomes inflates what the _typical_ person in the private sector is earning. <br /><br />You're right, no teacher, even the best of the best, is going to make a seven figure income, but teachers' lowest incomes are higher too. According to the TPAF valuation report, 1st year teachers in NJ average $58,000 in salary. There are a lot of college grads who earn less than that, especially now in the Coronavirus Recession. <br /><br />Again, very few people the private sector have seven-figure incomes but those incomes are included in the calculations of averages and skew them upwards. <br /><br />The difference between median and mean income is not trivial. The US's mean household income is at least $24,000 per year higher than the median income. NJ's mean household income is $30,000 a year higher than the median.<br /><br />The point of this is that the inclusions of private school teachers in the teacher salary (who are significantly lower paid) and high-income outliers among the data for private sector college grads have the effect of making the teacher/non-teacher pay gap look larger than it is between public school teachers and typical private sector college grads.<br /><br />StateAidGuyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00346914457455404884noreply@blogger.com