Richwine

Andrew G. Biggs and Jason Richwine have not only questioned the worth of schoolteachers "Public School Teachers Aren't Underpaid," op-ed, Nov. 8 but have done so on the basis of ideological bias and shaky facts.

Teacher Pay, Instruction Quality and Career Incentives 2011

Biggs and Richwine fail to take into account a significant factor of compensation—the rigor of the work.

Teacher Pay, Instruction Quality and Career Incentives 2011

Last week, the conversation popped up again in the New York Times' Room for Debate feature, which included commentaries from the report's authors, Jason Richwine and Andrew Biggs, as well as other education scholars.

Teach Plus: The Compensation Conversation: A Teacher's Two Cents Teach Plus 2012

Biggs and Richwine assert that since folks with 40-percentile standardized scores go into teaching, they are not underpaid.

Teacher Pay, Instruction Quality and Career Incentives 2011

Richwine and Biggs have correctly identified that there is a problem in our nation's compensation system for educators; however, the problem is not that teachers are overpaid.

Teach Plus: The Compensation Conversation: A Teacher's Two Cents Teach Plus 2012

In their original report, Richwine and Biggs argue that when health and retirement benefits, holiday time, and job security are taken into account, teachers are overcompensated compared to our peers in the private sector to determine comparable peers, Richwine and Biggs used scores on standardized tests such as the SAT.

Teach Plus: The Compensation Conversation: A Teacher's Two Cents Teach Plus 2012

Richwine and Biggs hint at performance pay in their Room for Debate commentary, and another commentator, Lisa Snell from the Reason Foundation, points out that the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, "calls for differentiating teacher compensation based on teacher effectiveness, the roles that teachers play, the difficulty of teaching assignments, and the length of the school year or school day."

Teach Plus: The Compensation Conversation: A Teacher's Two Cents Teach Plus 2012

Mr. Richwine is a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

The Public Worker Gravy Train Andrew Biggs 2011

The report caused quite a buzz, and as a teacher myself, I believe I speak for many of my colleagues in appreciating that Richwine and Biggs have drawn attention to the question of teacher compensation.

Teach Plus: The Compensation Conversation: A Teacher's Two Cents Teach Plus 2012

Mr. Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and Mr. Richwine, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, are authors of the new paper, "Assessing the Compensation of Public School Teachers" aei.org/paper/100259.

Public School Teachers Aren't Underpaid Andrew G. Biggs 2011