07:37 – The morning paper reports that state government plans to spend more than a billion dollars more next year than this year, part of which will go towards an across-the-board salary increase for teachers. That’s outrageous, considering that our public school teachers are already grossly overpaid. Many of them couldn’t get a job in a free market, and even they are paid at well above market rates. If you don’t believe that, just compare what they’re paid to what private school teachers are paid.
The solution is simple. Teachers are already contract employees, although like all things government, those contracts almost never lapse. Simply put them all on one-year contracts and require them to bid on specific teaching jobs at specific schools. Lowest bidder for each position wins. Those who don’t win a bid are unemployed, and cannot draw unemployment compensation. I suspect the average salary would end up being not much more than minimum wage, which is what public school teachers should be making. Most of the really good teachers would leave the public school system and go to work for private schools, which again is how it should be.
Eventually, public schools would die, as they should, and all students would attend whichever private schools they chose and could qualify for, as it should be. Public school buildings could be auctioned off to private businesses, and would continue to serve as schools. All students would be issued vouchers that could be used as they saw fit.
10:04 – I just ordered several more cases of bottles and caps, just under 7,000 total. I dithered about the shipping choices, but I eventually chose the free UPS ground rather than the $572.98 next-day option. If they ship today, UPS ground should get it here Thursday anyway. I’m off to build more science kit subassemblies.