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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!js2j
From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics,net.social
Subject: Re: Discrimination against women (and teaching's rewards)
Message-ID: <964@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 25-Jun-85 13:10:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.964
Posted: Tue Jun 25 13:10:14 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Jun-85 06:57:57 EDT
References: <482@ttidcc.UUCP> <8203@ucbvax.ARPA>  <457@unc.UUCP> <278@mss.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 41
Xref: watmath net.women:6078 net.politics:9577 net.social:736

> As a former MTS at Bell Labs and now a veteran of 3 years of teaching at
> the high school level I would have to disagree with the above statements.
 
> While an MTS I worked shorter hours, had infinitely more free time,
> felt free to take long lunches, if I worked until late one night I balanced
> that out by coming in later the next day. If something intrigued me I could
> simply pursue that for awhile - as long as my other work didn't suffer.
> For this freedom and access to outstanding facilities, I was paid extremely
> well, received stock offerings, had a part in a savings plan, etc.
    < deleted description of teaching tasks. - jls>
> For my time I get paid at a rate that is markedly below what I would earn
> were I still at BTL.  To be precise, in my first year at the Labs,
> fresh out of graduate school in 1978, I was offered $19,100.  Next year, my
> fourth year in teaching, will be the first year that I will exceed that
> salary.  (Anyone care to factor inflation into those figures?)
> 
> 	Jim Jenal		(aka ...!scgvaxd!mss!jpj)

    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