Reason recently interviewed Matt Damon at the "Save Our Teachers" rally in Washington, and a video of Damon laying the smack down on libertarians has been making its rounds in the public-sector-loving quarters of the blogosphere:I just wish the reporter was quick enough with her wits and a few facts to rebut Matt Damon's hollow argument as well as Michael Graham did yesterday at the Boston Herald:
According to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the average Boston teacher earned around $80,000 last year. That was the average. And that doesn’t include the generous health care or pension benefits, which would equal $100,000 in the private sector. All for just 180 days of work.
Nationally, the average teacher salary is significantly lower — $53,000. But a teacher still earns more by herself (and about 75 percent of K-12 teachers are women) than the household income of the average American family. Once again, with summers and holidays off.
That fact is important because when you break down what teachers earn per hour, the average teacher is better paid ($30.52) than the average computer programmer ($21.27) or architect ($27.71).
So Damon is wrong on the numbers. And his theory is even worse. Modern economic theory is based on the premise of incentives. Damon’s position that incentives don’t affect behavior puts him in the fiscal Flat Earth Society. He’s the equivalent of an economic creationist.
Of course people work harder if they believe it will pay off. Naturally people slack off otherwise.
Nobody denies this is true of cabbies, car salesmen or newspaper columnists — why wouldn’t it be true of teachers?
Oh, that’s right: “Teachers want to teach.” They’re above worldly concerns like pay and job security. Which some teachers are.
But isn’t it likely that others have more materialistic motivations? Like the fact that it’s a great way for underachievers to prosper?
“Slackers wanting to earn the country’s easiest college major, should major in education,” reports Lynn O’Shaughnessy of CBS’s Moneywatch. “It’s easy to get ‘A’s’ if you’re an education major.”
Which is good news for education majors who, according to O’Shaughnessy, “enter college with the lowest average SAT scores.”
So if you’re a “slacker” who wants to earn more than your brother the accountant, the public schools have got a deal for you!
And once you’re in, you’re in. If you’ve seen “Waiting for Superman,” you know that while one of every 57 doctors loses his license and one out of 97 lawyers gets disbarred, just one out of 1,000 teachers gets fired from big-city school systems for performance issues.
Oh my dear sweet goodness, it's like the bar scene in Good Will Hunting, except reversed and Matt Damon's the one getting put in his place:
UPDATE: 3:21 pm Eastern - Looks like teachers aren't so pure of heart or altruistically disinterested in material gain after all.
Wes Messamore,
Editor in Chief, THL
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