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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!ihuxk!rs55611
From: rs55611@ihuxk.UUCP (Robert E. Schleicher)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics,net.social
Subject: Re: Discrimination against women (and teaching's rewards)
Message-ID: <984@ihuxk.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 27-Jun-85 13:06:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxk.984
Posted: Thu Jun 27 13:06:37 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Jun-85 01:00:59 EDT
References: <482@ttidcc.UUCP> <8203@ucbvax.ARPA>  <457@unc.UUCP> <278@mss.UUCP> <964@mhuxt.UUCP> <1587@ihuxl.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 68
Xref: watmath net.women:6113 net.politics:9608 net.social:748

> >     First of all, let me say that Jim seems to be an extraordinarily well-
> > qualified high school teacher - much better than any of the ones *I* had.
> >     But as to the question of *why* high school teachers are paid so much
> > less than MTSes as BTL, I think the answer is pretty obvious.  There are
> > lots more qualified teachers ('qualified' as defined by the relevant schools)
> > than there are teaching positions.  Conversely, there are a lot more jobs
> > for people with the qualifications to be an MTS at BTL than there are people
> > with those qualifications.  The law of supply and demand ensures that the
> > equilibrium price for teachers will be low, as they are oversupplied.
> >     I wish there were more people of Jim's quality in our country's high
> > schools.  The way to accomplish this is *not* to diddle with the market to
> > raise teacher's salaries.  It is to change the definition of 'qualified' used
> > by the hiring schools.  Change it so that fewer are qualified and there
> > will not be such a glut of qualified teachers.  As a consequence, the     
> > equilibrium price for a teacher will have to rise.
> >     I'm afraid this doesn't really have much to do with net.women, save
> > that a lot of schoolteachers *are* women, in a field which is not *underpaid*,
> > but *oversupplied*.
> > -- 
> > Jeff Sonntag
> > ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j
> >     "I went down to the Scrub and Rub,
> >      but I had to sit in the back of the tub." - Dylan
> 
> I have to disaggree with the assumption that there is a surplus of 
> teachers, especially in the more scientific fields that are likely to
> become MTS's at BTL. This shortage of math and science teachers is 
> at a critical level. Chiefly because of this discrepency in salary
> between schools and industry, potential teachers do not become 
> teachers. Speaking for myself, I could have very well became a 
> teacher, but it made no sense to me to take a very severe cut in
> pay. So my chief point here is that you are wrong to say that there
> is an oversupply of teachers. There are more people who are 
> qualified to be teachers than MTS's, and this does not imply
> an abundant supply.
> 
> 			Kim Tracy
> 			Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
> 			

*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***
As the article just above points out, there ARE shortages (at least in some
places) of math and science teachers, and in technical fields at colleges
and universities.  However, there are surplus teachers in many other
fields, such as English, Social Sciences, etc.  One way to solve this would be
to pay higher salaries for teachers in fields that are in short supply,
especially if the shortage is due to competition with higher-paying
jobs in industry.  To date, this very sensible concept has been fought tooth
and nail by most teacher's unions, as well as by the non-technical portions of
college and university faculty.  These groups feel that all teaching fields
should be paid equally, regardless of the competition (or lack of it) from
industry, availability of qualified people, etc.   Recently, however, there has
been some movement toward more market-driven salaries, especially at the college
level.

An example is the large amounts of money being tossed around by the 
University of Texas system, to lure technical professors, Nobel Prize
winners, etc. from all over the world, with long-term lucrative contracts,
committed long-term support of research projects, endowed chairs, etc.
Some of these contracts are even getting up there near the contracts for the
football coaches!  (I won't comment on that!)  You can bet that these lucrative
contracts are not going to too many history or sociology professors, but 
instead to the engineering, science, medical types, where the competition
from industry is fiercest.

Bob Schleicher
ihuxk!rs55611
.