Issue - School Payment

TOPIC: ISSUE32 - "A school or college should pay its teachers at the same rate in all disciplines, regardless of differences in salaries for related fields in the world outside of school. For example, entry-level teachers in mathematics and in the arts should receive the same pay, even if outside of school, math specialists earn a much higher salary on average than do specialists in the arts."

WORDS: 643 TIME: 00:45:00 DATE: 2011/4/14 23:35:19

Things get complicated when teaching gets messed up with money. Ideally thinking, as all subjects are equal, there should be no differences in salaries paid to their teachers. However, it is hardly the case in reality. In fact, the difference not only exists, but are greater than most people would imagine. Although the phenomenon is widely criticized, I find the difference reasonable.

It is true that all the subjects are equal and thus should be equally treated, but it should also be noted that they are equal does not mean that they are same. Actually, the subjects are very different. The difference of the different subjects determines the difference of their salary rates. For example, teachers in most Business Schools are more involved with ecomomic problems, while the literature teachers are comparativly less concerned with economic and finance. Therefore, the teachers in business school may have more chances working on problems out of campus, such as getting involved in the finance market, doing researches in companies and factories. Naturely, their researches have more social economic value than literature teachers who buries themselves in ancient works. The salaries of teachers are a reflection of their economic value. The teacher with lower salary rates may contribute to the society in other ways, but economically they are less valueble. Thus, we can conclude that although all subjects are equal, they are still different. The difference in their contribution determines the defference in their salaries.

Also, schools and college are a part of the labor market. The salaries, which reflect the price of the worker, is determined by not prejudice of school masters, as many people wrongly assumed, but by the inivisible hand of supply and demand. Firstly, the job of higher salaries rates always implies a higher demand, which is a signal for the position, while the lower rates indicates that the job may not require so many teachers. Secondly, the higher salaries rates are usually a compensation for the unpleasure of the job. Mostly, the teachers with higher salaries are always busier than the teacher with lower salaries. For example, teaching art may be a delightful experience while teaching math is always a dull process, and thus the the higher salaries of math teacher is a compensation of their labor. Therefore, if all the salaries are violently modified to be at the same rate,