EIA has been challenged to report on the findings of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Dvelopment (OECD) about U.S. teachers' salaries.  Andreas Schleicher, the author of the OECD study, concluded that U.S. teachers are poorly paid compared to those of the rest of the world when the nation's income is considered. Schleicher compared teacher salary with the per capita Gross Domestic Product. He found American teachers earn 1.2 times the per capita U.S. GDP. He also compared salaries in two other ways: purchasing power rates and salaries relative to those of other workers (the results of these comparisons did not appear in any of the press accounts).

"A U.S. teacher gets about the average income," explained Schleicher to USA Today, "an average that includes all those people with low or no qualifications." He believes that this will make it difficult "to attract the best and brightest minds into the teaching profession." NEA President Bob Chase lauded the study. "It points out the fact that other OECD countries are giving greater honor and prestige to the profession," he said. "Obviously, this is something of great importance to attract people to the profession. Obviously, many people will be attracted to other professions."

Schleicher told EIA the latest study is unavailable on the Internet. While waiting patiently for the hard copy to arrive from OECD, EIA examined previous editions of OECD's annual international comparisons. The 1996 study showed Americans spend more on public education than any other nation, with a range of teachers' salaries 0.9 to 1.6 times per capita GDP. In examining the OECD data, the National Center for Education Statistics came to this conclusion: "One reason for the lower teacher salaries in the United States compared with the other countries reported may be that U.S. teachers (especially high school teachers) are required to obtain less training than their counterparts in the other G-7 countries. Whereas the United States offers a year to year teacher training program, the other G-7 countries often require 5 or more years of training." NCES also noted: "Additionally, the United States was the only country where nonteaching staff made up a greater percentage of the labor force than teaching staff." (I think I've read something about that somewhere recently. Hmmm...)

I find it amusing that when EIA's report compared U.S. public school teacher salaries to those of all other U.S. workers, it caused enormous controversy and was criticized for comparing "apples and oranges." But when OECD's report compares combined public and private teacher salaries to per capita GDP from nation to nation, it receives kudos from Bob Chase. All it takes is coming to the approved conclusion: teachers are underpaid and overworked. 

A study conducted for NEA concluded that 11 states will requires additional revenue of one percent a year over the next eight years to maintain existing services. The Outlook for State and Local Finances: The Dangers of Structural Deficits to the Future of American Education, authored by Dr. Hal Hovey, lists Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, New Mexico, Wyoming, Arizona, Tennessee, Florida, New Hampshire and Texas as states whose revenues will not grow as fast as costs. "States have only one income source — the personal income tax — that grows at a faster rate than personal income," said Hovey. NEA helpfully pointed out that "Not surprisingly, most of the states facing the worst structural deficits have no state income tax." (Do I perceive an unspoken "yet?")

Hovey is confident of what his figures will mean for state public policy. "It's safe to predict that practically everyone elected to state office this year is going to have to vote for some form of tax increase in the next couple of years to balance the budget," he said.

Hovey expects Washington State will have a serious structural deficit over the next 8 years, but the legislature is gearing up to spend an additional $440 million to boost teacher salaries by 10 percent over the next two years, along with $50 million to nearly double the number of teacher training days. "We may have to make some sacrifices on behalf of education," said state Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, who will chair the Senate Education Committee. 

Hovey expects California will not have a serious structural deficit over the next 8 years, but Governor- elect Gray Davis is setting the stage for serious measures anyway. The state's Legislative Analyst predicted a $1 billion budget deficit by July 2000 due to a forecast of slower growth and $1.4 billion in new spending. Davis' advisers are saying that the coming deficit may be even worse. "It may be substantially greater," Davis told the press. 

The Washington Education Association's counterattack against one of the pillars of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy suffered a setback as Judge W.T. McPhee dismissed 11 of 12 union charges against the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. The conservative think tank's investigation of WEA political spending ultimately led the union (and its parent, NEA) to pay more than $400,000 for campaign finance reporting violations. WEA had charged EFF with, among other things, violating WEA's First Amendment rights. Judge McPhee disagreed, letting stand only WEA's charge that EFF conducted "tortious interference with (individual member) contract[s]." EIA awaits WEA's thorough report to the membership of Judge McPhee's decision.

The National Labor Relations Board will hold a hearing tomorrow on whether the faculty of the University of Detroit Mercy Law School are managerial employees or not. At stake: union representation and collective bargaining for 19 tenure-track professors. The professors have submitted a petition to be represented by Local 243 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. You read that correctly, law school professors will be represented by the Teamsters. EIA eagerly looks forward to the day when Jimmy Hoffa Jr. holds his first teacher quality conference.

Familiar arguments? The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) are polling their respective memberships about merging the two unions. "We're better all together than being apart. When we're apart we can be played off one another," said television actor John Connolly, an AFTRA member. The opposition is led by Charlton Heston, a SAG member. "They [AFTRA members] are good people and they do important work," Heston said at a protest last week. "It's just different work."

Meanwhile, North America's two biggest rail unions, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the United Transportation Union, are also putting together a merger agreement. UTU President Charles Little called it "one of the biggest events ever in rail labor history." The merger was apparently the idea of AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who wanted the two hostile unions to "stop bickering."

Correction: Last week, EIA misquoted Dylan Thomas, whose famous line "...go gently into that good night..." was somehow mangled into "go quietly into that fair night." Egad! My apologies.

Quote of the Week: "If quality education is going to go on when the regular person is not there, you have to have qualified people to fill in. To find those people, you'll have to pay those people well. A person can go to McDonald's and make as much or more." — Terry Craney, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council. Wisconsin's shortage of substitute teachers coincides with a large surplus of full-time elementary school teachers, evidently due to a large pay disparity between the two. The state's regular teachers average more than twice the pay of substitutes.