A middle-school teacher made her students join her in protesting budget cuts (video here). Unfortunately for her, it looks like her protest did nothing but prove that perhaps our teachers are, in fact, overpaid and underqualified. Check out the sign one of her students was found holding:

It’s a good thing this teacher, Terry Hoffman, is retiring. She’s a language teacher, but apparently she can’t even teach her students simple grammar. Maybe if she spent more time educating her students, and less time planning protests, they wouldn’t be confusing “our” and “are”.

Let’s consider whether or not budget cuts for teachers are really that bad. The idea that teachers are among the lowest-paid and hardest-working is a persistent one. The question is, is it true? Are teachers’ salaries really that low, and are they lower on average than the average worker’s salary overall? Here are some findings from The Manhattan Institute:

Among the key findings of this report:

• According to the BLS, the average public school teacher in the United States earned $34.06 per hour in 2005.
• The average public school teacher was paid 36% more per hour than the average non-sales white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty and technical worker.
• Full-time public school teachers work on average 36.5 hours per week during weeks that they are working. By comparison, white-collar workers (excluding sales) work 39.4 hours, and professional specialty and technical workers work 39.0 hours per week. Private school teachers work 38.3 hours per week.
• Compared with public school teachers, editors and reporters earn 24% less; architects, 11% less; psychologists, 9% less; chemists, 5% less; mechanical engineers, 6% less; and economists, 1% less.
• Compared with public school teachers, airplane pilots earn 186% more; physicians, 80% more; lawyers, 49% more; nuclear engineers, 17% more; actuaries, 9% more; and physicists, 3% more.
• Public school teachers are paid 61% more per hour than private school teachers, on average nationwide.
• The Detroit metropolitan area has the highest average public school teacher pay among metropolitan areas for which data are available, at $47.28 per hour, followed by the San Francisco metropolitan area at $46.70 per hour, and the New York metropolitan area at $45.79 per hour.
• We find no evidence that average teacher pay relative to that of other white-collar or professional specialty workers is related to high school graduation rates in the metropolitan area.

Seems to me like public school teachers got it pretty good, especially when compared with private school teachers, who on average work more hours and get paid considerably less. Your average white-collar worker also works more and gets paid less. It seems like common sense, but people always tend to think that teachers are so poorly paid, and work so hard, and are just downtrodden and unappreciated. It would appear that this is a myth.

The key finding from the Manhattan Institute’s study seems to back that up.

When considering teacher pay, policymakers should be aware that public school teachers, on average, are paid 36% more per-hour than the average white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty and technical worker. They should be aware that the higher relative pay for public school teachers exists in almost every metro area for which data are available. Finally, they should be aware that paying public school teachers more does not appear to be associated with higher student achievement.

Higher teacher pay does not mean higher student achievement. Teachers are paid more than the average white-collar, specialty, and technical worker. Yet public perception is that teachers make nothing, and if you so much as mention budget cuts, teachers and unions go ballistic.

This particular case, with Terry Hoffman, is especially egregious. It shows exactly why people are crying out for budget cuts, too. Student achievement has steadily declined over the last twenty years. American students used to be the brightest in the world; now we’re behind other countries’ students in nearly every subject. Yet teachers salaries have increased steadily over the past twenty years. Ms. Hoffman’s protest seems to be a perfect example of just what the problem in education is. She had middle school students protesting budget cuts with grammatically incorrect signs. First of all, no teacher should have their students protesting. It doesn’t even matter what they’re protesting; the point is that teachers have no business whatsoever using their students as tools for their own personal agenda. This, however, is particularly inappropriate because this teacher had her students protesting for her own pay raises, shouting “SHOW US THE MONEY!”. It’s wrong, and I hope that the school board got an earful from angry parents (I doubt it). Second, this teacher’s middle school students couldn’t figure out the difference between “are” and “our”? And she couldn’t catch the mistake, either? And she’s a language teacher? It’s disgusting! This woman wants more money even though she apparently can’t even teach her own students basic grammar.

The best thing, in my opinion, is for local and state governments to start implementing merit-based pay and break the union stranglehold. Teachers should earn pay raises, just like everyone else in the world. Great teachers absolutely deserve pay raises, but horrible teachers shouldn’t get pay raises just because they’re teachers who happens to be in a union. If a teacher has students who routinely are failing, then they don’t deserve a raise. A teacher’s performance should decide whether or not they get a raise. Raises should be earned. Unions need to stop corrupting our education system. Our children’s futures depend on it.

Do we really want a nation of students who can’t tell the difference between “are” and “our”?

Cross-posted at The Green Room, Stop the ACLU, and Liberty Pundits.