In response to the Daily Camera‘s question on salaries for Boulder Valley School District teachers:
Why is teacher pay even an issue? Typically one’s salary is a private matter between an employer and an employee. Not so with tax-funded schools. A private matter becomes a public one, as we’re all forced to fund government-run schools, especially through property taxes or increased rents.
Such forced charity is the root of the teacher pay issue. So let’s eliminate or at least mitigate this coercion. One way is to phase out tax-funded schools. Surely this is too radical for most Camera readers, so here’s an alternative: education tax credits. If you donate, say, $1000 to a local school or scholarship fund, you pay $1000 less in taxes, and the local government school loses that tax revenue. Education tax credits would allow taxpayers choose what school they fund.
Such tax credits promote tolerance and diversity. No one would be forced to fund a school that paid teachers too much or too little. The teacher pay issue would dissolve, as would hot-button curriculum issues such as evolution and creationism.
Of course, donors and parents would probably choose schools based on educational quality, and view teacher salaries as one component of promoting it. Schools would compete for donations and figure out the best way to utilize their resources to create the best product. For example, a school unhampered by union rules might try to attract great teachers by paying them more than average ones. Paraphrasing Lending Tree, when schools compete, kids win.
This was published in the Daily Camera (Boulder, CO) on August 22, 2009.
