I was recently watching an episode of Cosby, the series after the Cosby Show (which was a seriously underappreciated show). In the episode I was watching, Griffin (the character played by Doug E. Doug) was fantasizing about what would happen if teachers got the salaries that professional athletes and entertainers got. I’ve heard people lament this for years.
“It’s a shame that a man can get $25 million a year for chasing a ball while a person responsible for educating the youth has to scrimp and save just to pay the bills.”
I couldn’t agree with this statement more…however there are a few things wrong with the logic.
Firstly, where will the money come from? Teachers are public employees while athletes are private employees. Teachers work for the people, athletes work for billionaires. The people who employ the athletes set the market standards for athlete salaries. Its nothing for a man who’s worth $100 billion to have a payroll somewhere in the neighborhood of about $325 million. He’s independently wealthy and he can do with his money what he will. As for teachers, there are so many things that go into determining teacher salaries, including property taxes, sales tax, referendums and what have you, all of which come directly from the public. Now, I wonder how many of those people who wish teachers could make multi million dollar salaries would be willing to pay the necessary increases in taxes to ensure that their wishes come true.
Well, taxes don’t have to be raised. If teachers are to make multi million dollar salaries, we could always privatize Education. We could let multi billionaires buy schools around the country and then offer exuberant salaries that would lure the best teachers to their school systems. However, if we take into account that multi billionaires never spend one dollar unless they’re gonna make at least $5 back. And it they’re paying to operate an entire school system and paying these teachers these multi million dollar salaries, where do you suppose they’ll make that money from?
In sports and entertainment, they can raise ticket prices, sell merchandise (jerseys, caps, video games) or sell the TV rights or what have you. How many people would actually pay to go and see a geometry class? And how many people would wear a World History jersey?
When I was in college and I would meet people, they would ask me what my major was. When I said “English.” The first thing they would counter with was “What are you gonna be, a teacher?” When I said, “Yes.”, the response was almost ALWAYS, “Well, you know you’re not going to make any money doing that.” I was like, I’m not trying to be a teacher to get rich. I want to be a teacher to make a difference. Its just that simple. If people want teachers to make a higher salary, there are a lot of sacrifices that we’re ALL going to have to make. Who’s willing to make them?