> Canada has THIRTY PERCENT higher median wealth than America. That's the sum of savings, despite lower income,

Interesting. Perhaps that extra “THIRTY PERCENT” accumulation of wealth is necessary as a cushion against the lower median salaries? To cushion against Canada’s lower social security payments in retirement? Or to counter a higher capital gains rate? Or to save up for higher cost real estate purchases? And does that “wealth” include real estate? I’ve heard Canada’s real estate has become significantly “overpriced” in comparison to the U.S.

(Of course this is way off the original topic - I show median teacher salaries are higher median overall salaries using specific census and BLS data elsewhere.)

> because we have far lower medical insurance costs and precarity.

Seems unlikely to be the main reason. First and second quintile U.S. households are almost 100% covered for medical costs - either by private or public plans. The middle quintile, is perhaps 75% covered - e.g. they’re assumed to be able to afford to make up the difference. The 10% of these folks who choose to forgo insurance, don’t bother to sign up for public, or are illegal immigrants, are, by law, still required to be treated at hospitals if they show up there - the government pays the hospitals back via the EMTALA system.

You might hate it, but I know many teachers that love it. It’s a choice. Keep in mind:

- The salary has always been this way. Teacher salaries have been around the median for many decades, but, included, are generous benefits, and if you stick with it, there are also retirement packages that at least match that that median in retirement. That isn’t at all trivial. Work out how much capital that would require.

- The teacher colleges and schools are now self selecting students that want to make a living by studying “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” and IX Kendi instead of Calculus and Churchill. Their diversity statements are a key part of the admissions and hiring process.

- That job is no longer attracting the cohorts that theoretically could typically make it in engineering. The average SAT score of a teacher college admit is now at 42nd percentile - far below that of the average engineering admit. The average college grad in general used to have a 117 IQ, but now it’s at 100 [ https://www.scienceopen.com/ho.... ] - and we know engineers haven’t forced the average down, but soft sciences, liberal arts and teachers are the ones doing so.

> I thought it was a worthy cause

Agreed.

Starting teacher salary isn’t the same as median teacher salary.

In short, you “forgot” to look at TEACHER medians versus OVERALL medians. I have cited census data elsewhere.

State by state figures are available via FRED, BLS, etc, but, for brevity, let’s just concentrate on national:

The census puts the national overall median at 60k for all occupations and the secondary school teacher median at 65k.
https://www2.census.gov/progra...

The BLS puts the overall teacher median at 62k - lower than the census number because it presumably includes preschool and elementary, but still higher than the national median (see the 50% number - not the average number).
https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/m...

This same pattern holds when digging down to the state level.

Note that these numbers do NOT include benefits - which are quite generous in comparison to the average private sector job.

I SPECIFICALLY said median public school teachers in each state makes more than the median worker, and that’s BEFORE even accounting for their generous benefits. You didn’t disprove that. Congratulations for knowing the difference between median and average, but you lose points for randomly switching to a wealth discussion and for sidestepping the main point.

I didn’t mention averages, nor wealth. The poster switched topics as he’s obviously having trouble addressing the main points.

The imbalance between democrats and republicans in schools is undeniable - I may be slightly off in estimating how teachers vote but my data was based on what teachers publicly admit to (not private surveys). 98% of teacher union donations go towards democrats.

Regardless of your quibbles, you “forgot” to address the ever rising funding, that teachers make more than the median in every state before even considering benefits, California’s OVERALL decline versus Florida’s OVERALL high rankings, Mississippi’s rise, Louisiana’s rise, California’s poor returns on investment, and California’s panoply of obviously self-defeating leftist pedagogy fads.

As for for the poor correlation between spending and grades, note:
- https://www.edweek.org/policy-...
- spending per student had risen faster than inflation since the 1970s, but overall scores haven’t budged
- NYC charters spend less per student but FAR outperform the public school peers, while teaching to the same demographics, per Harvard, Stanford, Yale, the NY Post, and the NYT

Home schooling is simply a natural reaction to declining public schools. Let’s pick California as a case study.

First, this isn’t about funding - California spends about twice as much per K-12 student than many other states, and its teachers, like teachers in virtually every state, make significantly more the state’s median salary and have significantly better benefits than the private sector.

Second, note that California’s colleges are surging remedial classes.

Third, California’s COVID response certainly deserves part of the blame - shutting its K-12 schools down for two years certainly didn’t help - but California’s steady decline goes back 15 years, well before COVID.

So maybe, just maybe, California’s broad commitment to progressive pedagogy policies deserves just a little scrutiny?

Mainstreaming: Mix students with widely varying learning levels into the same class.

Seattle Math: This type of curriculum goes by many names. The goal is to limit expectations of mathematically correct answers, and limit rote learning of concepts like “times tables”, in favor of rewarding effort and narrative.

Whole Word Learning: Replace “phonics” - aka sounding out words according to their spelling - with rote recognition of the meaning of whole written words. (California is now reversing away from whole word learning.)

Hire based on identity: Increase the priority of group identity when judging suitability for hiring.

Drop advanced classes: Advanced classes measurably increase disparity, so simply eliminate them.

Teaching college equity: Lower standardized test based admissions requirements for teaching colleges, as these have been shown to decrease admissions of historically underrepresented groups. The corresponding SAT scores of admitted applicants have now been lowered below the median - to the 42nd percentile according to some estimates.

Restorative justice: Assure punishment for infractions is equally distributed among identity categories regardless of infraction. Deprioritize consequences that are proportional to the infraction if that’d upset this equity. Ensure victims apologize to aggressors face-to-face (for potentially encouraging aggression) as a way to de-escalate.

Limit standardized testing: The claim here is that such testing reveals different results for different identities, and therefore must be biased and unhelpful in helping to detect where students need help.

Diversity statements: Ensure prospective new hires submit diversity statements that show an acceptance and understanding of the above ideas. Reject applicants that question them.

None of these initiatives are reliably empirically working out except in one dimension: they’ve reduce “disparities”. This is considered a win, as reducing disparity is the top goal. But this “win” is mathematically due to churning out a greater number of mediocre students: the bottom tier of students hasn’t improved, instead the top tiers have drifted downwards.

Shall we look elsewhere? At states that have instead doubled down on the basics? Florida has risen to or near the top of the national K-12 rankings (per U.S. News and DOE NAEP rankings), Mississippi is rising, Louisiana is rising, yet California has concurrently plunged to the middle of the rankings despite spending twice as much per student than any of these so called “fascist” states.

Must be a coincidence.

How did their standardized testing results compare to the local school’s results?

Conversely, public schooling in too many cases instills political values too - where judging by identity is considered more moral than blind justice.

One of the most popular textbooks in teacher college curriculums is “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, and these colleges are so broadly “all-in” on the theory that they’ve “equitably” decimated admissions requirements nationwide.

The average teacher coming out of these colleges today scored 42nd percentile on the SATs - they’re literally now less cognitively capable than the average high school student. It used to be the average high school teacher was a standard deviation above their average students. No more.

> Republicans have abandoned public education, which has driven teachers to the Democrats.

That’s a misleading framing. Teachers themselves have abandoned neutrality. Democrats monopolize education, and the democrat party is now arguably a wing of the teachers unions.

> Even Republican teachers do not trust Republican politicians to invest in public education.

Teachers now make FAR more than the median in every state, plus have benefits that FAR exceed the private sector, and overall investment has only ever gone UP faster than inflation. NYC now spends 40k per student per year. The education system is awash in cash. Yet the schools, PARTICULARLY highly Democrat controlled inner city schools, have been declining in quality for decades - more on why later.

> Only 1 in 10 teachers say they trust Republicans to ensure "adequate funding for schools, adequate pay and benefits for teachers,

Only 1 in 20 identify as republicans, and please define “adequate” funding given my previous points. It’s never enough, eh? Plus, ironically, study after study shows reveals little correlation between funding and student outcome. So note your redirection? Perhaps that’s because funding isn’t the issue, and there is a direct correlation between declining results and Democrat policies:
- mainstreaming (wildly different levels of students in the same class)
- eliminating advanced classes
- restorative justice
- hiring according to identity instead of merit
- deprioritizing standardized testing
- whole word learning instead of phonics
- social promotion instead of making struggling kids retake a grade level
- “equitably” lowering admissions requirements to teacher colleges (now lowered so much they’re at 42nd percentile on the SATs - literally less cognitively capable on average than their future K-12 students)

The results? Very blue California now leans into these policies more than most states and has “coincidentally” steadily declined in the NAEP rankings, but, despite spending half as much per student, “fascist” Florida is near the top, and, particularly among classically underserved demographics, “racist” Mississippi and Louisiana are doing quite well, plus rising.

> If you look at opinion polls, on most issues (abortion, gay marriage, tax policy, etc.) the majority of the U.S. population is liberal.

The abortion, gay marriage, and tax policy areas have significant crossover between conservative and progressive circles. But notice the issues you carefully didn’t mention?

Per Gallup the MAJORITY of Black Americans OPPOSED defunding the police, SUPPORT VoterID, SUPPORT controlled borders, and SUPPORT school choice - along with the majority of the nation. White liberals hold the OPPOSITE position to Black Americans (and to the majority of the population) on each of these issues.

> Hey it's good to cote nuance and I don't have the patience today to nuance all your points as well but I think you know all those points in the nuance still show the stark contrast between the parties. A difference that is more clear now than anytime In my life.

Republican presidents have been labeled “fascist” since Eisenhower. Reagan was supposedly starting WW3.

Your “difference” is not a change in Republicans - it’s a change in framing that has become even more squirrelly. So squirrelly that classical liberalism itself, including blind justice and basic capitalism, is now “fascist” per the Critical Theorists who’ve metastasized into the soft sciences and liberal arts departments, and per their supposedly non-existent militants, “Antifa”.

The shift in framing is so dramatic that if you strip MLK’s or JFK’s names from their respective writings, then they’d be immediately labeled “fascist” by your buddies. Don’t forget that a huge fraction of Trump’s coterie are former Democrats, including Trump himself.

Do you really think it’s republicans that pushed the following: Seattle Math (narrative over correctness), restorative justice, eliminating advanced classes, limiting standardized testing, lowering teacher college requirements (now at an abysmal 42nd percentile in SATs nationwide), mainstreaming wildly different levels of students into the same class, whole word learning instead of and hiring based on identity instead of merit, and huge ever rising budgets divorced from rewarding results? Really?

Compare “fascist” Florida’s NAEP rankings to California’s. Florida is at or near the top - particularly for classically underserved demographics- whereas California has sunk precipitously despite spending twice as much per student.

It’s the democrats setting the curriculum and overall K-12 policy nationwide - not republicans.