A cut in pay would motivate me to seek another job. I DO have children, a house and a crippling need for food.

It had not the slightest effect on how a teach, I do the best I can all the time.

My beef with Don is that as an economist he believes everyone is motivated by money.

How much will your pay have to be cut before you are motivated by money?

I realized after the fact that you were probably not talking about what I had written. Sorry.

Texas has a lot of things in line better than elsewhere in the nation; I’m glad that unions are more hamstrung then elsewhere. This naturally makes them less destructive.

Here in Texas teachers’ unions are very different, since teachers cannot, by law, strike or collective bargain. Therefore the unions are little more than insurance and information providers.

AND, as a classroom teacher of 17 years experience I know a little bit about teachers and education. I even work in a school that has a merit pay scheme and got a nice bonus check. It had not the slightest effect on how a teach, I do the best I can all the time. My beef with Don is that as an economist he believes everyone is motivated by money.

BTW, the idiotic statements I was referring to were not yours but Hayek’s belief we should cut teacher pay.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574318393190278188.html

If anyone believes that Don is fundamentally wrong in his comments, he/she is a “true believer” who cannot be bothered with evidence or rational discourse. Another fact is that in may public school systems, teachers of all disciplines are on the SAME salary schedule. So not only is merit not rewarded, but specialty in areas of high demand and/or low supply are not differentially rewarded; afterall that wouldn’t be fair and it wouldn’t foster union solidarity. Whatever!

Good Luck on this matter.

Burke

Burke

I have what Hayek recognized (and arrogant scientism is blind to) is a highly under-rated form of knowledge: the knowledge of particular place and circumstance. I have worked at an Indiana university for 27 years and live within walking distance from the campus; I know my institution intimately from may angles as I have not only taught undergraduate and graduate students, but I have done grant work, I have done committee work, I have done administrative work, I have been involved in the university governance system, etc. etc. If you are in Texas, as your blog handle suggests, and if you have never been to my fair city in Indiana, and if you have never worked at my university for an extended period, then YOU SIR are at an impossible knowledge disadvantage, your fatuousity notwithstanding.

My statements are neither “idiotic” nor are they things I “know nothing about.” Indeed SIR, I know exactly that of which I speak. Hayek’s point about the importance of the knowledge of particular place and circumstance is something that you should educate yourself about, it will save you looking the fool next time you are tempted by “The Pretense of Knowledge.” To that end, I suggest your read for example his Nobel address via the link below:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1974/hayek-lecture.html

OR, find yourself a school that’s willing to try your little experiment and enroll YOUR children.

My spring experience dovetails into the information I have been reading for years now, and that which I learned as a senior petty officer, training, counseling, and work, that being that nothing is accomplished without discipline.

Any school can be a good and productive school if it can maintain and enforce discipline. Private schools can do so far better than public schools.

The two advantages that I see in a private school is that they can cull their teachers on a regular basis to hire and keep only those that actually are capable, and they can enforce standards that keep the students in learning mode and not distracted by cool competitions, clothing styles, and beauty competitions.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call any public school good. They’re just better than poorer schools.

I think giving parents vouchers would improve education for all students.

The scheme is possible, but it doesn’t address an employee who needs credit to increase his value. The “equity” approach can be beneficial to adults as well as to children.

I think you have missed the point, maybe I wasn’t explicit enough. Walter Oi has a fabulous paper on labor as a quasi-fixed factor (JPE, 1962) I suggest you read it, if you have not already.

In case you have not let me give an overview: Oi’s theory makes several predictions: 1) the workers receiving “firm general” training will “pay” for ALL of their training costs in the form of lower waged during the training period; 2) workers receiving “firm specific” training will pay for only part of the cost of training in terms of the lowering of wages during training. Walter provides a test of his theory in the paper, showing that workers with “firm specific training” are less likely to be laid off during recessions than workers with “firm general training”.