Sunday, Feb. 17, 2019 | 2 a.m.
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I applaud the Las Vegas Review-Journal for its stand of approval for teacher bonuses for teaching in struggling middle schools. But the paper misses a point in its discussion of what happens to bad teachers. It states: “Presumably, principals will retain their effective teachers, but what happens to ineffective teachers? In the private sector, they would likely be out of a job.But in the world of public education, they will simply be shuffled off to other schools.”
The paper fails to see why this happens. The paper is so eager to see public education as bad and private education as good that it fails to see that teachers are a resource. And every good student of private enterprise knows that if you want the best resources, you have to pay for them. Poor wages make for little competition for jobs. The end result is that the best people are not competing for those jobs. It is just that simple.
The paper applauds the use of bonuses for staffing schools with poor records, but does not see that the initial problem with poor teachers is the result of insufficient salaries.
