Terry Jeffrey writes in a Dec. 14 CNSNews.com article:
Public school teachers receive greater average hourly compensation in wages and benefits than any other group of state and local government workers and receive more than twice as much in average hourly wages and benefits as workers in private industry, according to a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Public primary, secondary and special education teachers are paid an average of $56.59 per hour in combined wages and benefits, BLS said in the report released last week.
That is slightly more than twice the $28.24 in average hourly wages and benefits paid to workers in private industry.
That’s a dishonest comparison. Jeffrey has cherry-picked statistics to compare public teachers to all private workers, a comparison that does not account for the higher education levels and responsibilities that teachers have over, say, a private-industry laborer.
Further, as many commenters on the article’s comment thread have noted, teachers typically work many hours at home grading homework and preparing for class — something that may not be accounted for in the BLS’ numbers, thus further skewing things.
But then, dishonest reporting is what Jeffrey is all about these days.