Overpaid Underperformers

The stylized facts about American education:

1. Students do not receive an adequate education
2. Teachers do not receive adequate salaries

Most people would agree to these statements, especially relative to cities and high cost-of-living regions. But what if the only the first statement were true? Jay Greene and Marcus Winters argue in today's Opinion Journal that this is the case; and the numbers back them up.

Who, on average, is better paid--public school teachers or architects? How about teachers or economists? You might be surprised to learn that public school teachers are better paid than these and many other professionals. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, public school teachers earned $34.06 per hour in 2005, 36% more than the hourly wage of the average white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty or technical worker

But what about in the cities?

Metro Detroit leads the nation, paying its public school teachers, on average, $47.28 per hour. That's 61% more than the average white-collar worker in the Detroit area and 36% more than the average professional worker. In metro New York, public school teachers make $45.79 per hour, 20% more than the average professional worker in that area. And in Los Angeles teachers earn $44.03 per hour, 23% higher than other professionals in the area.

Those aren't cities known for their high student performance.

Public school teachers rank highly on my list of despised professions. Like bureaucrats, sugar planters and oilmen, these folks fleece the taxpayers by siphoning off a little of their booty to a hogpen of pliant lawmakers. Meanwhile, American children born into poor neighborhoods are trapped there as hostages of the American Federation of Teachers, whose bosses shed streams of crocodile tears at the fate of their own prisoners.