Teacher pay and smaller class sizes

One of my readers took issue with my last email and wrote:

Teacher's are not well paid and any hourly measure of teacher pay fails to include the hours of work that teachers do after school and at home lesson planning and correcting student work.

Also reducing class size is a proven method of education reform. Hiring high quality teachers is a different issue and should not be comingled with reducing class size. The issue of recruiting teachers is important and alternative methods of certificaction needs increased and open to many people. Excellent teachers can have a greater impact their class when class size is reduced.

Here was my reply:

1) On teacher pay, Jay Greene also addresses this in his book [Education Myths, Rowman & Littlefield, 2005], including the assertion that teachers work lots of extra hours vs. other professions (and, even adjusting for this, teachers are STILL well paid). I'm not against paying certain teachers more (math & science, those willing to teach in the toughest schools and, most importantly, those who really deliver high levels of student learning), but the main problem in our country is not that overall teacher pay is too low, it's how teachers are paid. For more on this, see my slides (attached).

2) Of course, all other things being equal, smaller classes are desirable. But all other things are not equal. The issue at hand is whether, given scarce resources, is mandating smaller class sizes (e.g., the rapid hiring of lots of new teachers) the best way to boost student learning and achievement? I think both common sense and the evidence (as shown in my slides at www.tilsonfunds.com/Personal/Classsize&teacherpay.pdf ) shows that this is among the least cost-effective "reform" measures.