Bigger Salaries Aren’t Enough to Solve the US Education Crisis
Lawmakers want to set a minimum wage for teachers. They should focus on rewarding results instead.
America’s future is in their hands.
Photographer: Olivier Touron/AFP/Getty Images
With public schools across the US reporting difficulty in hiring and retaining teachers, progressives in Congress have proposed a solution: a standard minimum salary for educators nationwide. It’s difficult to think of a worse way to address the problem.
By nearly any measure, the US faces a worsening educational crisis. The latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show alarming drops in student proficiency since the start of the pandemic. Reading scores for 13-year-olds are at their lowest since 2004; math scores are the worst they’ve been in more than three decades. The gap between successful and struggling students has widened. Other studies have shown similar failures across age groups, regions and subject areas.