Rich Atheletes, Poor Teachers
Why do professional athletes make so much more money than, say, professional teachers? Do people really value sports more than they value education? Dan McLaughlin writes that teachers provide a service that is generally accepted as contributing real value to the development of society. Some people view sports, however, as superfluous. They think of it as something that society could function well without. It doesn't seem to make sense... FULL ARTICLE
Comments (40)
I think in good times people will always pay more for wants then needs. Consider how much we pay for the cars we would really want as apposed to the cars that just get us from point A to point B. When our needs are satisfied we are willing to pay much more for what we want.
Published: July 11, 2007 9:15 AM
A wise man said, "In the war against the human mind, the public school teacher is the grunt."
Teachers should get the same exact pay as army privates.
Published: July 11, 2007 9:29 AM
Another factor worth considering: while both professional athletes and teachers tend to be members of unions, athletes make widely disparate salaries based on performance and their ability to draw an audience and boost advertising revenue. In other words, it is merit-based.
Contrast this with the typical public school union. Every teacher makes the same amount regardless of relative ability. Where is the incentive for a star when the laggards make the same amount? It stifles excellence and guarantees collective mediocrity. The results of decades of socialized education are self-evident.
Teachers often whine about a lack of respect (and pay). When they are finally subject to true market forces and have to produce something consumers want at a price they're willing to pay, respect and better compensation will be theirs.
Published: July 11, 2007 9:42 AM
The N.E.A. goes ballistic at the slightest mention of implementing merit pay. Like every other union, they worship at the alter of "seniority."
Published: July 11, 2007 9:54 AM
Some people consider competition to be so unpleasant that they go to great lengths to attenuate, mediate, avoid and squelch it.
If teachers were smarter (although more craven), they would exert more effort in artificially restricting the supply of teachers, rather than focus on avoiding the comparative measurement of their performances.
Published: July 11, 2007 10:05 AM
I agree that teacher's unions stifle incentive, although this is symptomatic of a much larger problem: public schools. I could be wrong, but observations I have made recently - in light of my own personal experience - have led me to tentatively conclude that public schools are sanitized concentration camps at best. The mediocre teachers protected by this system engage in intellectual genocide by forcing everyone to learn at the same pace and in the same way. We need to begin to seriously consider eradicating the state monopoly over education - by any means necessary - and replacing it with a purely free-market system. This would be in everyone's best interest, as paradoxical as this sounds.
Published: July 11, 2007 10:15 AM
Another factor that gets overlooked in sports is the effective taxpayers' and public subsidies that sports organizations receive, leaving the owners with more money. These include the following
1. Monopoly for baseball
2. The stadiums and areana built with public funds. How many other private business have their buildings financed by taking money from the taxpayers. Where is the respect for the taxpayers property? Let them build their own facilities and face the risks of the market.
3. Free airtime to the networks over the public airwaves. When we "sell" bandwidth to anyone else they have to pay a hefty fee or if we lease land for oil exploration the oil companies are paying fees for that. How much does NBC pay for their uses of the public airwaves? This gives the networks more money to be used in purchashing rights to broadcast sporting events than they would have had otherwise. Is this really free markets? Let's bring the networks into the same rules that oil companies and cell phone companies have to live by.
Published: July 11, 2007 10:17 AM
1. advertising. athletes are poster children for pretty much any marketing campaign. teachers... they use Ticonderoga pencils and BiC pens. The most subtle form of marketing and the best is that the teachers/and or the school district pays for those products. Advertising money gets dumped into professional sports, however i think it may be more beneficial in the classroom or hallways. Kids are way more impressionable, if the liberals would only allow such antics in public schools.
Published: July 11, 2007 10:51 AM
Sim[ly put , ahtleltes are paid to perform ,teachers are not
Published: July 11, 2007 11:33 AM
While union membership and state control of distribution may affect the stickyness of teachers salaries, this does not alter the underlying reality that the (relatively low) "price" for their services is determined by the abundance of supply of teachers. The shortage of teachers for subjects like chem, physics, maths and econ also shows that we are dealing with a mispricing of some services due to state interference in the market. Left to market forces rather than state-enforced union compensation structures, chem and maths teachers would earn far more than an english or "social studies" teacher -- again not due to any intrinsic value of math over english, but due to a more limited pool of qualified applicants *and* more demand for hard science skills in the marketplace.
Published: July 11, 2007 12:00 PM
What would the net result be if attendance at sports meets were mandated and attendance at school not? Would that raise the level of teaching? Thomas Jefferson tried to get schools started and failed with private money. Previous to that only the well off had an education.
Though even the bible preaches private property (Every man will sit under his OWN tree)there will still be a requirement for a Government.
Regards'
Published: July 11, 2007 12:13 PM
Many public school teachers are only marginally more intelligent than that their students starting at about 4th or 5th grade, and relative intelligence declines until students reach college.
Published: July 11, 2007 12:36 PM
Excellent points! I read recently that the total of all professional athletes in all sports is around 3,000. How many public school teachers are there? Scarcity is the main reason for high pay for pro atheletes, but productivity is another. A typical high school teacher can teach just six classes of about 25 students in a year, or about 125 students. But with television, an athelete can reach an audience of millions. Teachers could earn more if they would use modern technology more efficiently, become more efficient, and reach more students. As long as most Americans believe that education must be as close to one-on-one as possible, that won't happen.
Published: July 11, 2007 2:43 PM
Are pro sports and atheletes really working in a free market? Consider, for example, stadiums. To the best of my knowledge, most, if not all, stadiums are subsidized by the government, i.e the taxpayers, instead of the teams and their fans, end up paying for them.
I don't care how much are how little people earn on a free market, but when an individual or group of people or enabled or oppressed by political means instead of having to operate through economic means, the context is completely different.
Pro atheletes and their teams are an example of a group which are enabled by political means. If they had to bear the costs of stadiums directly, the industry would be much more comptetive driving down salaries, and the amount of aggression against taxpays would decrease.
Not to mention how the government cartelized media industry has helped the teams and atheletes...(I should probably expound on this, but I won't-for now).
In sum, atheletes pay is not determined by a free market by any measure, and should not be defended as such.
Regards,
Dave
Published: July 11, 2007 3:19 PM
"What would the net result be if attendance at sports meets were mandated and attendance at school not? Would that raise the level of teaching? Thomas Jefferson tried to get schools started and failed with private money. Previous to that only the well off had an education."
As true as this may be, this didn't mean that those with less money lacked resources. After all, there was always homeschooling, something to which an increasing number of parents are turning today.
Also, unlike previous generations, today's youth have unparalleled access to information via the internet. They are free to log on and investigate just about any conceivable subject they wish. Many of them also take advantage of weblogs to engage in discussion and debate, further honing their minds through Socratic dialogue. The result? They're getting smarter. In fact, many of them are already too smart for their high school teachers, who labor that much more to "keep the little buggers in their place".
A free market education system would far more easily adjust to these changing conditions and deliver a much better product at a much lower price. This decentralized model would also offer a much wider variety of educational curricula in order to cater to individuals with different learning capabilities and needs. By contrast, the state system is slow to recognize these changes, much less adjust to them, if it even feels like doing so. Also, educational choice is far more limited, and unless the child magically fits into a specific character mold, he or she will in some way be "left behind".
"Though even the bible preaches private property (Every man will sit under his OWN tree)there will still be a requirement for a Government."
Again, you are correct. However, to suggest that public education necessarily follows from the need for government is a non sequitur.
Of course, these are simply my observations and I realize I could be wrong. I appreciate your insights.
Published: July 11, 2007 4:00 PM
I agree with Dave, with a bit of a nuance.
There still is a scarcity involved, it is simply magnified many times over with subsidies and force. Governments allow for collective bargaining, prevent "collusion" by owners in many ways, and subsidize stadiums. It has incubated these massive salaries players get. It's a combination of scarcity and government support.
But there still must some attraction to do these things, so there is also a "market" of sorts in that bureaucrats must choose between several choices of what to spend their stolen money on, and Sports wins out over so many others, in the nightmare world of the bureaucracy, Sports is considered more important obviously.
Published: July 11, 2007 4:15 PM
This article makes some good points, but I don't think it quite solves the puzzle. There is a range of talent for any profession; there is presumably a top 0.01% of teachers, just as with athletes. The question is, why aren't those top teachers "superstars" ("diamonds") that make 7 or 8 figure salaries? They also can do things that mere mortals can't.
I think the real source of the income disparity is on the consumer side, and arises from the nature of entertainment. People don't consume sports in near-isolation, as they do teaching or most other services. One teacher can serve 25 or 40 kids. But following sports is a social phenomenon that is much more enjoyable when a large number of people are aware of the same players. You can talk about Barry Bonds with your friend who lives on the other side of the country. Barry Bonds can appear on a national television show and nearly everyone watching will know who he is. The average person can't keep the names, histories and personalities of millions of sports figures in his or her head at the same time; we can't keep mental track of more than a handful of sports stars, or movie stars.
Published: July 11, 2007 4:17 PM
"Though even the bible preaches private property (Every man will sit under his OWN tree)there will still be a requirement for a Government."
That is no more than an assertion.
Published: July 11, 2007 5:52 PM
I think it's worth pointing out that the copyright cartel distorts pay in sports for similar reasons that it does in music and other types of media.
Published: July 11, 2007 11:29 PM
It appears that Mr. McLaughlin's initial question is somewhat misleading: why do sports pro's make so much more than teaching pro's? If the superstar speakers/consultants/opinion manufacturers are included I would not be surprised to discover that they reap vast sums of money - more that the sum total of all the sports heroes.
Another interesting point to consider: is it fair to compare the supply of skilled teachers with the supply of fine diamonds? After all, for many years the majority of the diamond supply was controlled by the Oppenheimer family. I suppose there is a mechanism for controlling the supply of truly good teachers. After all, many of the Mises contributors teach or operate at 2nd and 3rd tier institutions.
Finally, consider how the word "value" is used. On a purely utilitarian level it is equated with wealth. However, if you consider some of the greatest teachers in human history - Moses and the prophets, Maiomedes, Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas - you realize that wealth is definitely not associated with being a great teacher. In fact, the greatest and most perfect teacher of all human history was incomprehensibly tortured and executed by very wealthy people. And it is to this teacher, Jesus - God incarnated as a man - that I defer the honor of establishing the highest meaning of the word "value".
Published: July 12, 2007 1:25 AM
"What would the net result be if attendance at sports meets were mandated and attendance at school not? Would that raise the level of teaching? Thomas Jefferson tried to get schools started and failed with private money. Previous to that only the well off had an education."
Public funding of education does not necessitate government administration of education. We can publicly fund education while allowing for competitive private administration of it. Of course, this enrages the NEA labour monopoly but there's almost nothing I enjoy more than enraging the NEA. As a rule, anything that makes this organization of vapid dimwits apoplectic is good for the students.
Besides, I disagree that their compensation is so low. They virtually can't be fired. They take almost a third of the year for vacation and they don't have to be very bright (and usually aren't). During college, I briefly taught algebra at a local high school to help pay for my education. Even though I had no teaching certification and hadn't even graduated from university, I was told I had taken more math classes than other math teachers in the district teaching the same level of math I was! At the time, I had only completed calculus I in college (it was engineering track , but still!). Yet, in today's dollars, my salary was $65,000 and that was lower than the teachers less qualified than I.
Published: July 12, 2007 9:13 AM
Public funding of education does not necessitate government administration of education.
You are missing the point. Government control is the reason, the object, the purpose of government funding.
Control is the goal. Funding is merely the means by which they gain control.
Published: July 12, 2007 2:11 PM
George,
I have no illusions about the intentions of those in government. However, if we can't get rid of public education (which I don't think we can), we can at least have private administration of it. Private administration will at least be an improvement over the current system.
Published: July 12, 2007 2:24 PM
Methinks:
Why not? When you say "can't" I don't think you mean it literally. If enough people chose to stop sending their children to public schools, the system would collapse. It's unlikely to happen at the present time, but certainly not impossible.
Are you saying, instead, that education cannot be provided privately? If so, please elaborate further. I would like to evaluate your argument on its merits, but I don't see an argument as yet.
Published: July 12, 2007 2:40 PM
Sorry about the weird blockquoting above. I haven't figured out all of what the site will and will not permit and it's hit or miss sometimes.
Published: July 12, 2007 2:41 PM
Um...no, Scott. I don't mean it literally. I mean that I don't think that it's likely to happen right now. Thus, private administration would be better than what we currently have. I'm thinking that what Milton Friedman proposed is both doable and better than what we have now.
Published: July 12, 2007 2:48 PM
Ending government administration while retaining government funding is completely unrealistic. It is far more likely that we could accomplish the abolition of government education altogether.
Even now, we see the growth of vouchers and such -- these are NOT mechanisms for giving more money and students to private schools (which are patently superior to state schools). They are mechanisms for extending the reach of government control over private schools. It is NOT a way to make education more private; it is a way to make private schools more dependent on government, and thus more subject to its power.
This is what happened to universities over the last 60 years. Are universities more, or less, independent than they were in 1940? Are they bastions of independence, or of Statism?
The Left DESPISED the "conservative" and independent nature of universities before WWII. It was Ground Zero in the war against the State. The GI Bill, and later the student loan and other federal subsidies, made them creatures of the State. Most professors now spout the Statist party line on command.
He who pays the piper calls the tune. It is better to accept this as a fundamental truth of economic reality than it is to try to pretend it doesn't exist.
Published: July 12, 2007 4:40 PM
Yes. There exists a dreadful misunderstanding among the general public that vouchers or charters are "private school". They are plainly not. Both "conservative" and "liberal" (I have no idea what the difference is or why it even matters) factions have a vested interest in opposing truly "private" education for it weakens the power and attenuates the reach of the state. So one side - Cs - advocate the voucher incarnation of state control; while the Ls advocate the incumbent system. Either way, the state wins.
Published: July 13, 2007 1:59 PM
"Ending government administration while retaining government funding is completely unrealistic. It is far more likely that we could accomplish the abolition of government education altogether."
Since we can't even get people to accept private administration right now, what makes you think it's more probable that we will be able to scrap the whole public system?
"This is what happened to universities over the last 60 years. Are universities more, or less, independent than they were in 1940? Are they bastions of independence, or of Statism?"
Actually, universities have always been uncomfortably liberal and statist. God FORBID you should have been labeled an "anti-communist" in the 1930's! Even Chicago was rather more Keynsian than it later became. Ayn Rand's "We The Living" sold poorly and was panned by intellectuals for it's bald anti-communist stance. When the ideas of "social justice" and "equality" spread like wildfire among the drugged out hippies of the baby boom, Marxism regained its foothold. These burned out hippies who were too incompetent to compete in the private sector remained in school and now dominate academia with an iron fist. At least, that's been my first hand experience with academics. Incidentally, universities were publicly funded long before WWII but that's not the real problem. The real problem is that most research grants are funded by the state. That's a big reason why they so dearly love the state!
Which leads us right back to your last lines:
"He who pays the piper calls the tune. It is better to accept this as a fundamental truth of economic reality than it is to try to pretend it doesn't exist."
I'm not arguing that public education is better than private. I'm arguing that baby steps are an easier political sell than a giant single leap. It's easier to get private administration first, than to privatize schools entirely in a single stroke.
I'm originally from the Soviet Union. Believe me, I despise state power more than you possibly could
Published: July 14, 2007 10:16 AM
Commenter Larry Ruane came closest to the best answer: athletes can get higher pay than teachers simply because they have MORE PAYING CUSTOMERS. The BEST athletes get the MOST pay because the increased number of customers will also pay HIGHER fees to see them play because their skills are the best.
Market economics is still at work. There's nothing sinister about the fact that some athletes get more pay than most teachers.
A teacher may teach the same 100 students every day for the entire school year, so his pay is based on the revenue generated from the parents of those 100 students.
A pro athlete has literally MILLIONS of customers who pay into the pool from which the athlete's pay is drawn.
Before the advent of radio and TV money, athletes were paid out of the GATE RECEIPTS. So the revenue generated from the 20,000 or so fans at the stadium, comprised the entire pool of money from which the atheletes (and owners and stadium owners) were paid. In the first half of the 20th century, most pro athletes made about the same wages as skilled factory workers.
Radio and TV made it possible for literally millions of new fans to "attend" the games. The broadcast viewers, of course, did not pay the full stadium entrance fee, but the ADVERTISERS do pay millions to the broadcasters for the privilege of advertising to the fans. The ad rates are based on the size of the audience as determined by the Nielsen ratings. World Series, play-offs, and other championship games always draw the highest ratings so they collect the most money. The Super Bowl can charge a million dollars for a 30-second commercial.
Thus, the pro athlete has access to a pool of money from the gate receipts plus the broadcast revenues. And that's why so many of them can make over $1 million/year.
It's simple math. More eyeballs represent more money which represents higher pay.
Some "teachers" have made big bucks by selling VIDEOS of their lessons, like Jane Fonda, some years ago, made an exercise tape that earned 7 figure money for herself. Many other "teachers" have made instructional videos which have paid off well.
So it IS possible for teachers to earn big bucks, they just have to find MORE CUSTOMERs.
Professional athletics is one of the few "pure" market based industries left in socialist/fascist America. Credentials are worthless. What counts is the performance on the field. And when he can't cut the mustard anymore, whether his name is Babe Ruth or George Mikan, he loses his job. What could be more honest!
Don Hull
Libertarian Candidate for Congress 1998, 2000
Published: July 14, 2007 10:49 AM
What would be more "honest" would be that if, instead of the taxpayers being forced to foot the multi-million dollar bill to build and maintain the teams' stadiums, the teams had to operate in a free market and bear all the costs of building and mainting the said stadiums.
As it stands, I view pro sports as another government promoted cartel, just like the media, the oil industries, agribusiness, the auto industry, banking, insurance and pretty much every apect of the American economy, with a few exceptions such as...maybe wheat farming.
Published: July 15, 2007 1:12 AM
Mr. Whitbread:
You are badly mistaken. I don't think you are trying to spread a misimpression--it's just that I think most today are hardly aware of the history of education in this country and that you belong to this large group.
From some occasional reading I've done on the topic (which even surprised me), it's apparent that basic literacy was widespread in the US long before the first public schools and compulsory education laws. NYC, Boston, Philadelphia--larger cities--had literacy rates in the 90+% band. Newspapers were read everywhere. What seems actual is that literacy has actually been slowly declining ever since that period. (And it is also probable that the US was, by far, the most literate of nations.)
I remember reading (in a FEE publication--The Freeman--of about 10 years ago--material from
the NY Board of Regents in which was considered the advisability of publicly-funded education, with the conclusion drawn that nearly everyone who wanted education could get it--and that the exceptions tended to be only in the most rural areas where the young were seen as needed in familys' agricultural efforts. Also treated in the same piece was whether the less-well-off could attain education, with the conclusion drawn that the usually-sectarian institutions that existed made hardly any discrimination between members' and non-members' children either in admission or distribution of available tuition moneys. (What was the rule was that parents were expected to pay as much as they possibly could for their children to receive assistance from the institution.)
It seems that the real "push" toward public funding and compulsion was based on a perception that the young of the tide of immigrants required
acclimatization to "American" values lest they
subvert the status quo.
Published: July 15, 2007 9:46 AM
I'm originally from the Soviet Union. Believe me, I despise state power more than you possibly could.
I'm not trying to compete with you as to who is more libertarian.
My point is that even if an advocacy group managed to engineer a short-term electoral achievement of separating school administration from funding, it would be short-lived, and would lead directly and rapidly to the ultimate, counter-productive result of greater State control than the existed during status quo ante.
Published: July 15, 2007 12:25 PM
George,
I didn't intend that to be competitive. I meant it as a brief clarification of where I stand with regard to the state and why.
Why would the separation necessarily be short-lived? Why couldn't it be a stepping stone to complete privatization, in your opinion?
Published: July 16, 2007 12:40 PM
Because government money ALWAYS devolves into government control.
The prospect of receiving government money is superficially very attractive. Many schools would want to have it, feel they need to accept it in order to survive. This is a self-perpetuating financial pressure, since this government money would displace private contributions, reduce them, just as government money displaces charitable giving, the founding of religious hospitals, etc.
Then, once all of these schools, which are nominally private, are thoroughly dependent on government for money, the voting public's desire to exert state-control would be intense.
A few well-placed stories in state-sponsored media outlets would appear about how these state-funded schools are teaching - GASP - libertarian philosophies, anti-government principles, rebelliousness, religion, conservative social virtues!
The message would go something like this: DID YOU KNOW THAT YOUR TAX DOLLARS ARE HELPING TEACH RICH PRIVATE SCHOOL KIDS THAT TAXES ARE BAD, THAT GUN CONTROL IS EVIL, THAT RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS SHOULD BE FOLLOWED, THAT THE CIVIL WAR WAS REALLY A WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE AND THE SOUTH HAD THE RIGHT TO SECEDE, AND THAT PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT TO BELONG TO PRIVATE, EXCLUSIVE SOCIAL CLUBS?
The taxpayers are paying for this! Well, the government needs to step in, to set some basic standards on how public money is being spent ....
Published: July 16, 2007 3:42 PM
That's a fair point, George.
Seems to already be happening in Britain already.
Published: July 16, 2007 5:42 PM
Remember, Methinks, governments don't care about spending the money. You know the saying in business, that it takes money to make money? That basic idea doesn't apply to governments -- their revenues are completely severed from their expenditures. Spending money means less than nothing to them. It's not their money, after all.
The ONLY part of the whole operation they care about is the control.
And controlling education is ESPECIALLY attractive to governments because it makes controlling people as adults that much easier.
I believe that increasing government control tends to happen by increments, punctuated by crises. But in the reverse direction, liberty tends to increase by great leaps, radically, usually via revolution and in the wake of economic collapse.
Published: July 16, 2007 10:37 PM
Yeah, thanks, George. I spent my career on Wall Street and my education was in finance and economics, so I already know that.
What I don't know is how you plan to wrench control of the schools away from government in one fell swoop. or, actually, in any swoop. In my head, I've toyed with charitable organizations setting up schools, but I have no confidence that the NEA won't be able to get legislation passed to "set standards" and such. Even homeschooling in California has come under government regulation. Home schooling!!! there really is no end to the government's tyranny.
Plus, along the road to serfdom, education has become a "right", along with health care and housing. At the same time, owning the product of one's labour has become a "privilage". Charles Rangel recently said regarding tax cuts "the government let you keep an extra 4% for the past four years."
Given the current socialist political environment and the entitlement culture socialists have cultivated since FDR, what is the plan to privatize schools?
Published: July 17, 2007 11:35 AM
how [do] you plan to wrench control of the schools away from government in one fell swoop. or, actually, in any swoop?
I have a strong distaste for electoral politics, so I am probably not particularly well-qualified to give a very good answer.
The only effective long-term strategy I know of for dealing with government violations of our rights is simply to withdraw from participation, to speak out, to spread your opinions, to maintain your credibility in the way that you live your life and the way that you present your views to others. Don't vote. Don't validate the government. Don't allow your children to be indoctrinated by a government school. If you want to homeschool, and California won't let you, then move. People have had to flee oppressive governments before. It's very unfortunate, but family comes first.
The surest way to remove oppressive government (in any context) "in one fell swoop" is to allow it to become everything its promoters want it to be and sit back and watch the whole thing collapse. Let schools become a cesspool of waste, inefficiency, corruption and ignorance. Government workers of all stripes do not care about the ostensible purpose of their enterprise as much as they care about their own convenience. They make no money with their work, so they can't engage in economic calculation. Their own convenience and comfort becomes their only currency. So it is guaranteed that schools will only get worse, all on their own.
Published: July 17, 2007 1:23 PM
Also, athletes get part of their revenue directly or indirectly from IP rights. Advertising brands, TV broadcasting of sporting events, etc. are extremely lucrative. It is likely that the "scarcity of athletes" is worsened by IP laws, which in turn boosts the price of their services.
Published: August 24, 2007 12:49 PM