[Vision2020] Paper on the Teachers' Salary Grid

[Debbie Gray]

On Mon, 17 Feb 2003, Dale Courtney wrote:

> Debbie,
>
> I'll ask Jack about this statement.
>
> However, you just committed the classical logical fallacy of *argumentum ad
> hominem* by attacking the person instead of the argument presented. It's a
> good distraction, but it doesn't deal with the substance of his argument:
> that government school salaries are based on the number of college credits
> and the number years having taught. There isn't a more dysfunctional salary
> system in the world.

First, I am not attacking his argument. However, I am not blindly
accepting it, either. Why should we believe his study when there are
similar studies which refute his argument? One can find articles and
studies to support anything. I am not really following this thread on
teachers' salary. By the way, I started his intro to econ class in spring
of 1997 and withdrew from it before the first test because of those and
similar comments.

Second, I think his comments in class are a good barometer of his
thinking. If one wants to 'prove' that rape is a matter of marketing then
certainly one can find lots of supporting evidence to 'prove' that, bias
in research is a very real problem.

Third, how do private schools base their pay rates? How do you rate job
satisfaction?  I just read an article at:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=30aera.h21 about how private
schools seem to have higher rates of teachers leaving their jobs due to
dissatisfacction. And another article at:
http://www.aft.org/research/survey99/figures.html which discusses a
variety of topics such as 'the share of teachers salary as a percentage of
school budgets is the lowest in 30 years'. What does that throw into the
debate?

Must go, 10 month old liberal is screaming her head off for a share of her
cradle to grave security provided by this member of her household
government...

Debbie

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  Debbie Gray      dgray@uidaho.edu      http://www.uidaho.edu/~dgray/
  We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to
  have the life that is waiting for us." --Joseph Campbell
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