High teacher salaries don’t match student results
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/09/2015 (3129 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
If paying teachers really well translated to stellar performances from kids in the classroom, Manitoba students would be head and shoulders above others across Canada. But they’re not, of course. In fact, students in this province pretty much scrape the bottom when it comes to test results.
Teachers here are the highest paid in Canada, next to Alberta, a C.D. Howe Institute analysis shows. Further, their pensions are the richest — teachers here pay less into their plans and can retire earlier — among the six largest provinces compared in the survey.
It’s an extraordinary expense, something that has not escaped the notice of anyone opening their property tax bills each year. The tab from school divisions, which levy taxes on property, keeps rising and surpasses the tax bite of municipalities in many cases.
Yet, over the decades, the results of cross-country tests and of international assessments conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development show Manitoba students slipping further and further behind. Manitoba’s scores in math, English and science are the lowest in the country, next to P.E.I.
There are some important points to draw from the survey. First, as the author, economics professor David Johnson, notes, it dispels the argument paying teachers more money produces academic results from students. A number of studies have purportedly set out such proof, and teachers’ unions have picked up the argument.
Second, why are Manitoba teachers pulling in some of the best salaries in Canada? Prof. Johnson points out two possible factors: 1) Manitoba is alone in bargaining on a division by division basis; the other provinces bargain centrally. 2) Manitoba is alone in its binding arbitration provision, which forbids teachers to strike.
That gives the provincial government something to think about. But the more probable factor in the salary gap is the fact, as he also notes, school boards here draw a big chunk of their operating budgets from levies on property owners. In fact, Manitoba is almost alone in Canada in this.
That has allowed school boards to tap property owners with higher and higher taxes, despite repeated provincial efforts to convince trustees to keep them down. Years of threats, cajoling and financial incentives from successive NDP education ministers have failed to deter the school boards.
Mr. Johnson is careful to point out Manitoba’s dismal results may be due to the high proportion of aboriginal students, who have markedly lower graduation rates. But demographically similar Saskatchewan, which ranks poorly, but above Manitoba on Canadian and international tests, has been improving its scores. (And while British Columbia and Alberta have higher proportions of aboriginal students compared to Ontario and Quebec, they show better test results compared to the eastern provinces.)
So we can toss out the baseless argument salaries and benefits need to be high to produce results, and to attract the best to teaching. There is no shortage of teachers, who are paid much better than most other Manitobans, including those with university degrees.
The NDP government, with its natural affinity for unionized workers, has benefitted politically from the Manitoba Teachers Society’s support. The government, not surprisingly, has refused to play hardball with those unions, despite demands it move to take over bargaining province-wide and phase out school boards’ taxation power.
That would put a greater load of education funding on the provincial government’s shoulders — where it should be, and is in the rest of Canada. That would take the pressure off property taxes, giving municipalities some breathing room, and more allow the province to target its funding to divisions where students struggle most.
The NDP record shows it’s not the party to do that. The C.D. Howe study gives opposition parties some good ammunition to take the fight for improving education in the next election campaign.