Newly-minted special-ed teacher Robin Munsch recalls several college classmates who dropped their education majors and studied medicine or business, citing poor teacher pay as the motivation for the switch. Presumably, switching majors was an option open to Ms. Munsch as well, and I commend her and the millions of other pubic school teachers for chosing to stick with teaching. But these are educated people making an informed choice: everyone knows that teaching is not a lucrative profession. For teachers to clamor that they’ve somehow been cheated or duped strikes me as petulant.
Throughout your article, I find words such as “deserve” or “due” used in a manner which implies teachers are entitled to large salaries because they have college degrees and strong work ethics. Adam Smith would disagree. Just ask any priest, military officer, or social worker. Capitalism hands out income based not on merit, but on the economic value the market places on the output of each worker.
