School not getting results? Fire everybody!

[Cutlass]

No. I am saying that they are imoral and selfish because they refuse to do a little extra effort for a fair compensation, when such effort is obviously much needed. Quite frankly they should work the required extra time (which is very little) for free, given their already handsome salary. When my company is having trouble I work more hours for free, and I don't make nearly as much as those lovely types (and I'm an engineer!).

But I am a right-winger and an engineer, therefore I am an evil reactionary and a "class enemy", while those unionized teachers making nearly twice as much as me are working class heroes.

But you are simply assuming that they are making more than the market wage because they are a union. So you want to reduce their real income. Your market wage is different, despite being in a different profession, because you live in a much poorer nation.

Until you try it, you do not know that you can get more qualified and more motivated people for less money. So your ideas on that score are simply made up ideological talking points.

 

[downtown]

Well of course market mechanisms may play a role. They played even in Soviet Union. But to say that the salary of unionised public employees is somehow the result of the free market in action is quite bizarre. There's nothing free there.

Sure there is. This isn't the 1960s in America anymore. Schools everywhere have competition, and since there are more teachers than openings, the "buyer" has more price setting power. The district was the one that signed the union contract. If they didn't want to go union, they could have hired Alt-cert people or gone outside the union...like they are doing now.

They prob didn't do that because they knew attracting professional talent would be difficult.

America isn't the same place as Brazil.

But you are simply assuming that they are making more than the market wage because they are a union. So you want to reduce their real income. Your market wage is different, despite being in a different profession, because you live in a much poorer nation.

Until you try it, you do not know that you can get more qualified and more motivated people for less money. So your ideas on that score are simply made up ideological talking points.

I think comparing an engineer's salary in brazil to somebody in RI is totally crazy. You're what, 25? 26? The average teacher at CF had been a teacher for over 11 years. A mid-career professional in a wealthy state in the wealthiest country makes more than somebody just starting out in Brazil? You don't say!

honestly Luiz, you are way out of your depth here.

I agree.

 

[luiz]

But you are simply assuming that they are making more than the market wage because they are a union. So you want to reduce their real income. Your market wage is different, despite being in a different profession, because you live in a much poorer nation.

Until you try it, you do not know that you can get more qualified and more motivated people for less money. So your ideas on that score are simply made up ideological talking points.

That they are greedy and selfish is pretty uncontroversial, though. Isn't it?

 

[luiz]

What are you talking about? If that's the salary they want, then if it's too high the free market would see that someone cheaper replaced them. And then you, as the high-priest of free marketeering, advocate voluntary unpaid work!!! Laughable.

honestly Luiz, you are way out of your depth here.

Are you guys for real???

This is not a private organization! The government, their employer, is not subject to market rules! It does not have to pay market wages!

Even if it was a private organization, which it is not, the union could still distort the equilibrium market price!

You people should check the concept of "free-market" ASAP.

 

[luiz]

Sure there is. This isn't the 1960s in America anymore. Schools everywhere have competition, and since there are more teachers than openings, the "buyer" has more price setting power. The district was the one that signed the union contract. If they didn't want to go union, they could have hired Alt-cert people or gone outside the union...like they are doing now.

They prob didn't do that because they knew attracting professional talent would be difficult.

America isn't the same place as Brazil.

As I said, there always are market mechanisms. I don't doubt that the market plays a larger role in the US than in Brazil in public edcation.

But that does not make the salary of unionised public employees the result of a free market! By its very definition, it can't be. The salary paid by the district is a government policy.

I think comparing an engineer's salary in brazil to somebody in RI is totally crazy. You're what, 25? 26? The average teacher at CF had been a teacher for over 11 years. A mid-career professional in a wealthy state in the wealthiest country makes more than somebody just starting out in Brazil? You don't say!

I am not comparing, I am offering perspective.

I also offered the average stariting salary for a teacher in the US (25-26k), and the OECD weighted average (20k). Is there any figure I can provide that would point to the obvious fact that they're overpaid?

I agree.

And I think neither of you understand what a free market is.

 

[Mise]

Luiz, you have a completely crazy definition of what "market wage" means... I mean, you already admitted -- twice -- that market mechanisms determine teachers' pay. But just because the employer is the big bad government, and the teachers are represented by the big bad unions, you don't accept that as a "market wage". Just because one of the players is the government doesn't mean there is no market for a good

 

[luiz]

Luiz, you have a completely crazy definition of what "market wage" means... I mean, you already admitted -- twice -- that market mechanisms determine teachers' pay. But just because the employer is the big bad government, and the teachers are represented by the big bad unions, you don't accept that as a "market wage". Just because one of the players is the government doesn't mean there is no market for a good

Even you?

I "admitted" ( )that market mechanisms play a role in any price determination - even in the Soviet Union. That does not mean that every price or salary subject to some market mechanism is the "free market" wage, as RRW put it.

There is no free market when it comes to the public sector. Their decisions are not ultimately dependent on market forces, but on government policy. One policy change can now dramatically reduce the wages of those teachers - that does not mean that the "market wage" has fallen dramatically!

Even if we were talking about a private firm (which we are not, by a long shot), strong unions may distort the equilibrium wage, and hence it could be much higher than the "free market wage". This is in any "Economics for Dummies" book; pick one.

It is unbelievable that I am being forced to post repeatdly arguing that the salary paid by the government to unionised employees is not the free market salary! Bizarre!

 

[Ayatollah So]

Typically, the powers that be don't really care how bad your scores are, they're just looking for improvement. If you teach 5th grade, your students show up at the 2nd grade level, and you bring them up to the 4th grade level...your students are still technically "failing", but nobody is upset.

That's not what I've heard elsewhere. The "powers that be" in your region must be smarter than the usual.

Greed is good. They are behaving just like CEOs would. They should be commended.

Pshaw. If they were behaving like CEOs they'd be getting golden parachutes right now.

@ the OP: Who dreamed up this brilliant approach of using a meat-ax instead of a scalpel? It's gotta be more efficient to evaluate the teachers individually and then fire the bad ones. Notwithstanding the facts that evaluation is imperfect and costs resources - it's still better.

 

[Mise]

Even you?

I "admitted" ( )that market mechanisms play a role in any price determination - even in the Soviet Union. That does not mean that every price or salary subject to some market mechanism is the "free market" wage, as RRW put it.

There is no free market when it comes to the public sector. Their decisions are not ultimately dependent on market forces, but on government policy. One policy change can now dramatically reduce the wages of those teachers - that does not mean that the "market wage" has fallen dramatically!

Yeah, and one decision, say, by Microsoft to stop supporting AMD processors or something would result in the "market price" of Windows to drop dramatically. Or one decision, say, by Macy's that it is paying too much for its electricity contracts would result in lower prices through negotiation. Or one decision, say, by Walmart that staff retention is a major problem in certain regions would result in a rise in wages in those regions. Hmm... sounds a lot like what's going on here, doesn't it? The local authorities, in response to high teacher churn rates, decided to accept higher wage demands from teachers, in order to stop them leaving.

Government policy, just like any private school policy, determines the salary of teachers. A private school in the same situation might decide that it is paying too much for teachers, and negotiate their wages downwards. They may even put up with strikes. Or they may not, and decide to settle for higher wages. The government goes through the exact same process in negotiations with its staff. Just because it's the government doing the wage negotiation doesn't mean it's not just as determined by supply and demand as anything else...

In any industry, if you want to recruit top talent, you have to pay them well. If you pay below average wages, you will get below average employees; if your working conditions are below average, you will have to compensate your workers better to get them to stay, otherwise you get workers not good enough for other companies. The decision making process that goes on to determine wages is pretty much the same in any company -- including those that are government run.

Even if we were talking about a private firm (which we are not, by a long shot), strong unions may distort the equilibrium wage, and hence it could be much higher than the "free market wage".

Erm, Luiz, "free market wage" doesn't mean "wage if collective bargaining doesn't exist".... Unions are players in markets, just as corporations are... Maybe you should try reading a more advanced book on economics, instead of doing the equivalent of pretending that 2+2 is all there is to know about maths

 

[warpus]

You mean they negotiated with the unions, and both sides agreed that 78k was an acceptable salary?

The unions kinda have an upper hand in salary negotiations. A lot of jobs with union backing have inflated salaries.

edit: from my experience, here in Canada

 

[Mise]

The unions kinda have an upper hand in salary negotiations. A lot of jobs with union backing have inflated salaries.

edit: from my experience, here in Canada

Maybe non-unionised jobs have deflated salaries, because of the massive clout of the employer compared to the individual?

Note: I'm not saying that unions are always right, I'm just saying they are sometimes necessary in situations where the employers have far more bargaining power than they ought to. For example, in a nation where one single oil company employs, say, 80% of the working population, that oil company clearly has a lot of power over wages. Similarly, in regions where the auto industry is by far and away the biggest employer, auto companies have too much bargaining power compared to the workers; unions, in this case, level the playing field, and put workers on equal footing with their employers.

Again, I'm not saying this is true in all cases -- indeed, unions have often acted to the detriment of the people they're supposed to represent. And unionisation tends to benefit insiders at the cost of unemployed people on the outside. The point I'm trying to make is that unions may or may not be a Good or Bad Thing(TM). Sometimes they are good, sometimes they are bad.

 

[luiz]

Yeah, and one decision, say, by Microsoft to stop supporting AMD processors or something would result in the "market price" of Windows to drop dramatically. Or one decision, say, by Macy's that it is paying too much for its electricity contracts would result in lower prices through negotiation. Or one decision, say, by Walmart that staff retention is a major problem in certain regions would result in a rise in wages in those regions. Hmm... sounds a lot like what's going on here, doesn't it? The local authorities, in response to high teacher churn rates, decided to accept higher wage demands from teachers, in order to stop them leaving.

Microsoft can have an impact over the market price of Windows, that's quite obvious. It's their product. But what's happening here is that the government decided that the teachers were receiving too much for their work, and hence offered a different agreement. When the union refused the agreement they opted to hire new teachers for less money.

The "market price" of teachers is not affected by a single district changing its policies; and the policies are not bound to market prices entirely. The government could very well pay the teachers twice as much as they'd accept.

Government policy, just like any private school policy, determines the salary of teachers. A private school in the same situation might decide that it is paying too much for teachers, and negotiate their wages downwards. They may even put up with strikes. Or they may not, and decide to settle for higher wages. The government goes through the exact same process in negotiations with its staff. Just because it's the government doing the wage negotiation doesn't mean it's not just as determined by supply and demand as anything else...

In any industry, if you want to recruit top talent, you have to pay them well. If you pay below average wages, you will get below average employees; if your working conditions are below average, you will have to compensate your workers better to get them to stay, otherwise you get workers not good enough for other companies. The decision making process that goes on to determine wages is pretty much the same in any company -- including those that are government run.

No, the case is very different.
You know that, and any Economics textbook also knows that. The government is not bound by the same rules as private companies. It doesn't have to deliver profit to its stockholders. The whole incentive structure is different, which is why almost always government service is more expensive (there isn't as much incentive to cut prices).
Additionally, the government faces no competition. If a company overpays its employees, it may be challenged by another company offering a similar service for less price. If a government overpays its employees... the taxpayer foots the bill. That's why market forces act over private companies, but not over the government (not to the same extent, anywway).

You are arguing an absurd position, and you know it. Wage determination is NOT the same in the public and private sectors. This is completely and entirely obvious.

Erm, Luiz, "free market wage" doesn't mean "wage if collective bargaining doesn't exist".... Unions are players in markets, just as corporations are... Maybe you should try reading a more advanced book on economics, instead of doing the equivalent of pretending that 2+2 is all there is to know about maths

And maybe you should read on the effects of cartels over equilibrium prices. Specially when the cartels have legal rights and protections, as is the case of unions.

I repeat, your position is absurd. Essentially you are arguing that any salary paid by the public sector is the "free market salary", which is wrong and even laughable.

 

[downtown]

Additionally, the government faces no competition. If a company overpays its employees, it may be challenged by another company offering a similar service for less price. If a government overpays its employees... the taxpayer foots the bill. That's why market forces act over private companies, but not over the government (not to the same extent, anywway).

In US education, the "govt" absolutely faces competition. They compere with an increasingly robust system of charters and private schools. When they lose enough enrollment (because they suck), the schools close.

 

[luiz]

In US education, the "govt" absolutely faces competition. They compere with an increasingly robust system of charters and private schools. When they lose enough enrollment (because they suck), the schools close.

The government never closes. My point is that wages in private firms are very firmly bound to market rules (because it affects the rate of profit of the company), while in the government they are not.

You said that the government faces pressure to increase the quality of the service, which is true. But the pressure is much more dilluted to cut costs. Financially, the publis schools are not competing with private schools. They don't compare their profit to the competition, they're not scared investors will find a more attractive destination for their money.

Could you people please give up your stubburness for a short while and just admit the obvious - that wage determination is different in the private and public sectors??

 

[Dachs]

The government never closes.

No, but government-run schools do.

 

[LucyDuke]

Note that I am not saying that it is possible to replicate exactly the same models anywhere; each place has its own reality.

Ding ding ding.

You readily admit you don't have any experience with the situation being discussed, while you tell people that do have that experience "don't over-dramatize" when they talk about the reality on the ground.

The money is different in different places. The problems are different in different places. The laws are different in different places. If the results are so great in Brazil, why don't you talk about the specific things that make that the case? It would certainly be more interesting and more useful and more relevant than crapping on the fired teachers and bickering over what constitutes a free market.

 

[Cutlass]

That they are greedy and selfish is pretty uncontroversial, though. Isn't it?

There is no indication that they are. Unless you have something else to show, that sounds pretty much simply made up partisan talking points.

 

[luiz]

No, but government-run schools do.

And that somehow proves that the salary formation is the same as in private organizations...?

@Lucy
Stop putting words in my mouth. I never said the results are so great here; I said twice that they're quite bad, even worse than yours. What I said is that in some specific schools, high quality education is being delivered at public schools for very poor students of a very poor background.

A notable success example, and very near my home, is the CAP-UFRJ. As the wiki link says, despite being a public school, it consistently ranks within the top 10 schools in Brazil. This is extremely remarkable, as unlike the other top schools students do not have to pass a tough admission exam, but rather there are random admission draws.

I think the CAP experience serves to highlight several of the myths thrown around here. Many of the teachers there have no experience at all, being students of the Federal University (which runs the College).

 

[El_Machinae]

Huh, I'd say that unions are a free market mechanism, while public employment is

 

[luiz]

There is no indication that they are. Unless you have something else to show, that sounds pretty much simply made up partisan talking points.

OK. You tell me your opinion about their decision to not work a few extra hours for 30 bucks an hour. Bear in mind that:
-The school really needs the extra hours;
-They already make 78k;

Please, give me your opinion about that decision. It'll make the discussion far more productive.