Good Magazine: Philanthropic Condescension, Teacher Salaries, and Truthiness

I subscribe to a lot of magazines, sometimes just for the hell of it. I have a long standing interest in the genre... And many of them don't cost very much. So I signed up for Good Magazine after I took a look at the first issue. This was especially easy since, remarkably, 100 percent of the cost would be donated to a charity of my choice... No lose situation... What the hell, right...

Good is a strange bird, but one fully in sync with the times. Here's the editorial statement:

We see a growing number of people tied together not by age, career, background, or circumstance, but by a shared interest. This revolves around a passion for potential mixed with fierce pragmatism and creative engagement. We sum all this up as the sensibility of giving a damn. But to shorten it, let's call it GOOD. We're here to push this movement and cover its realization.

While so much of today's media is taking up our space, dumbing us down, and impeding our productivity, GOOD exists to add value. Through a print magazine, feature and documentary films, original multimedia content and local events, GOOD is providing a platform for the ideas, people, and businesses that are driving change in the world.

The word "business" sticks in the craw a bit, but who cares, right? Sounds like a good idea, even if the statement doesn't inspire much confidence as far as a predictor of hard-hitting content. One imagines post-partisan up-beatness, neo-liberalism restrung as greenish good will plus tech innovation etc...

But looking back, I probably should have seen what was coming up the pike. I was shocked today when I opened up the newest issue arrived and I flipped through to the following infographic feature at the center of the magazine. (Please excuse the poor scans - hopefully you'll be able to make them out... Click to enlarge....)

I nearly choked on my dinner when I saw this page, which is a state by state chart of how much higher the average school teacher salary (well, not quite... wait for a second) is than the average "white-collar, nonsales employee" in the US. So we're not even talking teachers vs. proles and farmers here. This is teachers vs. executives, managers, administrators, (nonsales) service and clerical workers.

The numbers are shocking. The average teacher in Connecticut makes 43.1% more than the average white collar worker? In New York, it's 37.7%. Vermont, 53.9% And in Florida, we're talking a whopping 65.2%. Teachers must stock the upper-echelons of the upper-middle class, giving doctors and lawyers and corporate vice presidents a run for their money! Wow! We're not even talking college teachers here - just plain old high school, middle, and elementary school instructors.

Of course, this is just so much bullshit. The first clue is the lead name in the list of sources for the infographic. That's right, the good old Manhattan Institute, an organization renowned for its slippery use of statistical analysis - a Scaife and Olin funded right-wing think tank in the classical mold pledged to "develop and disseminate new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility."

So what is the trick of the MI study upon which the Good pages are based? The oldest and silliest trick in the book when it comes to knocking teacher pay: the comparisons are based on hourly earnings rather than yearly salaries. So, because of the summer and other breaks, as well as the short formalized work day (8-2 or 9-3 clock in and out), yeah, obviously teachers' rate of pay looks ridiculously impressive. Basically, when presented this way, the average teacher in the US, who actually makes $47,674, is factored as making the equivalent of something like $57,000 per annum.

Which of course they don't make. They make $47,000 per year. The Manhattan Institute explains their deceptive method in the following way:

One of the significant benefits available to public school teachers is that they work fewer weeks per year. Teachers can use that time to be with family, to engage in activities that they enjoy, or to earn additional money from other employment. Whether teachers use those free weeks to make additional money or simply to enjoy their time off, that time is worth money and cannot simply be ignored when comparing earnings. The appropriate way to compare earnings in this circumstance is to focus on hourly rates.

Um, sure. This is true. But let's be clear. School teachers are not going to, as a rule, find work during the summer months (and mid-semester breaks, for god's sake) that compensates them at the same (ridiculously high - that's the point, right?) level. Anyone who has been a Ph.D. candidate in need of summer cash can tell you that the summer temporary work options generally include, what, landscaping, summer camp counselor, barista, lifeguard, supermarket bagging - all minimum or in some cases subminimum wage type positions. Over the summer, one might expect to pull in, oh, $1500 or so before taxes. Of course, teachers can "be with family" or "engage in activities they enjoy," sure. More likely, teachers do some of that type of thing and a lot of class preparatory groundwork, etc. But the one thing they can't do is go into cost-reductive hibernation for the summer months, abandoning rent, mortgage, car payments, eating, and the like. The cost of living runs on a, yes, twelve month cycle. The salaries, yes, are for a twelve month cycle. In casual parlance, it's usually called a year, and there is no option to stay alive and hungry only during a fractional part of it.

OK. Well and good. The MI study is dishonest, cherry-picking a set of data to work with that paints an inaccurate picture of the situation. But we expect that of the good folk at the Manhattan Institute. Still, why didn't I just write a post arguing with the MI? Why bother with Good?

I bother with Good because they dishonestly made things even worse. Take a look back at the scans above. While the Manhattan Institute paper is careful to ground its claims in the proper nomenclature - they are careful to at every point describe the comparison as one of mean hourly earnings, which is the right word for the numbers compared - in the Good graphs the comparison is erroneously stated as one of salaries. "CT 43.1% above avg worker's salary." No one, speaking proper English, uses the word "salary" to denote an hourly wage or hourly earnings, or really anything other than the total amount of money one is paid for a job over the course of an entire year. (Just in case anyone is unclear on this point, take a look at what comes up when you search for the phrase hourly salary on Google - a whole bunch of calculators for converting your yearly salary into an hourly wage.) This error on Good's part smacks of hyperbolic, inflationary dishonesty. Far fewer of its readers would be all that stunned to learn that teachers have a relatively high rate of pay per hour - the graph is only provocative because it suggests that the yearly salaries of teachers is that much higher than other white collar workers.

I imagine the reaction of the average reader would be something like Holy crap! Teachers make that much money and they don't even have to work summers!!!! Overpaid bastards!!!! Which is exactly not the case. The word salary, in other words, allows Good to score twice against teachers for a single strike...

I'm sure the reaction of Good would be that this was a fact-checking error, a non-intentional slip. But of course it isn't - the proper language is right there for them to take from the MI piece, and the fact is salary sensationalizes the piece, makes it seem provocative and convincing in a way that mean hourly earnings does not. You can hear the number crunching, the figure forcing in the latter - the former seems to be clear as day, a simple calculation.

So why would the good folks at Good play the truthiness game? Why would they take up this issue, which seems a bit distant from the overall focus of the magazine, in the first place? Go take a look at some of the press on the founder, and I think the picture starts to clear up a little bit, especially in regard to his family foundation's investment in teaching entrepreneurship in the schools. (Hint: public sector teaching jobs are not very entrepreneurial... But privatized, deunionized schools, well, that would be a different story... Hell, while we're at it, why not scrap the whatever shreds of public sector infrastructure are left in the world, as tech savvy scions of media capitalists with their checkbooks + 25-40s with their green and good intentions (organic eats etc) would do a far better job at this whole taking care of poor folks than the... You get the point.)

It's a shame, really. The magazine, in general, seems like a partly noble gesture. But it is hard to see how this infographic jives at all with these philanthropic intentions. (Even if schoolteachers were overpaid, which they of course aren't, not by a longshot, this is an issue that Good thinks is worthy of attention, among all the other very grave problems there are in the world?) And above all else, we suffer from far too much bullshit in the realm of politics and popular sociology, far too much fact bending and bad faith argumentation, which makes this sort of thing, in the end, truly unforgivable.

Comments

[Stephanie]

If you're interested in the demands of teachers, read the union (NEA) mag. Some of it has to do with higher wages, especially for bus drivers and support staff who frequently do not make anything resembling a living wage--but it's true that it has more to do with what can be done to make things better at school, which improves life for kids and teachers alike. Having enough special ed teachers and reasonable sized classes are just the beginning of the demands.

It's true that there is an image of teachers being whiners, saying that they're the least appreciated, most underpaid, etc. If this really were a teacher mantra, then I'd have to agree that teachers are whiners. Although it's sometimes necessary for NEA's lobbyists to say such things in order to raise enough hell to get us raises, it's not a sentiment I hear in conversation among teachers. Although my colleagues and I would like to be paid more, most teachers I know, although they don't feel appreciated, don't think they are the absolute worst off. What I have heard colleagues say, in a low voice, with guilty eyes, is that they're looking at some engineering positions, and I have known people who have taken those jobs, to be replaced by folks with less knowledge and experience. And several comments have already made the obvious point--if teaching's such a sweet gig, then the teacher shortage is all just imaginary, right?

But seriously, let's take a look at how the wages breakdown hourly, because that's what really counts, right? My sweetheart's housemate, as it happens, just quit teaching to become a firefighter and now finds that she has so much time on her hands that she doesn't know what to do with herself (and she wasn't down with the 13 hour teaching days, maybe only like 9.) The awesome thing about firefighting is that you get paid to sit around and watch TV, or read, or cook gourmet meals, or whatever, and then every so often you have to go off and, well, work. And then you get three days off in a row. Not bad, huh? Maybe that's why I haven't heard anything about how there's a massive firefighter shortage.

Please don't misunderstand me--I think that firefighters, police officers, and the like are worth every penny they're paid and more. But if you're going to break it down into hourly wages, be honest. If what the housemate says is right, firefighters work about five hours for every 24 they get paid, whereas I work 40 for every 24 hours I get paid. Not that anyone's counting. (I do sound like a whiner, don't I? Well, GOOD magazine started it...)

[Stephanie]

One more thing. It's true that doctors get a lot more schooling than most teachers. It's also true that you only need a high school diploma to be a firefighter or a cop, the professions with which GOOD magazine choose to pair and compare teaching, whereas teachers need at least four years of college, and more and more districts are requiring Master's degrees. My Master's program took fifteen months with little vacation, plus the writing of a 200 page thing once classes were done, which took me six months (while waitressing.)

So to what profession should we compare teachers? Maybe I'm ignorant about what it takes to be an accountant, but it seems to me that selling an audience of thirty clients at a time something that most of them don't want, getting them to risk (and experience) embarassment and failure daily, mixed in with much encouragement and some success, and still somehow raise their self-awareness, self-esteem, and critical thinking skills--and then justify all your choices in the face of irate parents and national test results--it seems to me that this might be a little harder than crunching numbers. Might require more thought, effort, and skill.

So to what profession can we aptly compare teachers? That folks find it necessary to compare them at all speaks to the fact that those who've never done it simply can't fathom what's involved in it. The things listed above aren't concrete actions, like "arresting someone," or "doing open heart surgery," so people with little imagination wonder just what it is we do all day. I think that teachers want, more than anything, credit for being professionals, for doing a job for which it's worth being paid well--and to be paid well, and attract more good ones to the profession and keep the good ones we've got.

[Nate]

I don't think that the amount-of-schooling argument holds water. My wife went back to nannying instead of pursuing an MA in early childhood education after she worked a while in a Headstart and found out that she would make as much with the MA as she already did as a nanny. And if one looks at wages of newly minted PhDs in the humanities vs lawyers and doctors, the schooling to money translation breaks down.

If the argument is not "schooling translates into higher pay" but rather "schooling _should_ translate into higher pay" I don't find that particularly compelling either but I'm happy to agree to disagree.

Stephanie I enjoyed your comments. I like to compare teachers to nurses and to the construction trades, because both of those require a specialized education and are sometimes unionized. I think the comparison to nonunionized professionals invites problems.

take care,
Nate

[Nate]

Here's a link a friend sent me about university teacher salaries -
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2053201,00.html

[Teri]

Hi CR,

Just wanted to add my two cents here. I work in Corporate Finance. I average about 60 hours per week,am lucky to get my 3 weeks vacation per year and guarantee I make as much as a teacher who has put in 13 years. Out of my salary I need to try and squirrel enough away for retirement because I am not going to get a pension and am not depending on Social Security (which isn't enough to live on anyway.) I majored in English at a very good State University and graduated with a 3.86 GPA. I tried to get a job teaching Secondary English and guess what? I couldn't get a job. For every one opening I can't even tell you how many applicants there were. If teaching were such a hard gig, why is it almost impossible to get a job in a good suburban district?

[Parent]

I completely agree with CBR, teachers knew what they were getting into even more than blue collar workers, hell they pursued their careers! I agree the system is broken too, It amazes me that the very people who choose to teach our children, cant organize themselves or their life well enough to do their jobs and accept what they have chosen, given the fact they only work 9 months out of the year. I found this blog on Google after typing in 'teachers are whiners' I was glad to see I'm not he only one that feels this way. I say, Shutup and teach! That's what your job is, if you dont like it, do something else!