From The Same Thing: Paying Some Teachers More Than Others Isn't a Radical Notion
by Frederick M. Hess • Dec 6, 2010 at 8:18 am
Cross-posted from Education Week
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Note: Over the next few weeks, I'll occasionally be flagging nuggets from my new book, The Same Thing Over and Over, just out from Harvard University Press. For more, check out the book on Amazon.
Teacher unions insist that it would be something akin to the end of Western Civilization should we venture to pay history teachers more than gym teachers, or math and science teachers more than history teachers. As Bob Chase, then-president of the NEA, said a few years back in USA Today, "Please don't distract us with ill-considered half measures, such as paying math and science teachers more than other teachers. We might as well hang a sign in the teachers' room saying: In this school, if you don't teach math or science, your work is literally 'less valuable.' This is insulting--and wrong."
Paying individuals unequally can be unfair and divisive. A century ago, for instance, high school teachers were paid more than elementary teachers simply because secondary teachers were more likely to be male. But