Summary: After a series of entries, in which I progressively moved my study of distributive justice toward its specific application to educators, I recently concluded that principles of distributive justice do apply to teachers. In this entry I start with what professors and teachers have in common. I end by setting up a later entry in which I explore the differences.

[Naturally, every entry in this continuing series is, even if perfectly argued, not binding upon the behavior of employers, not, that is, until that which is just has moved from a matter of compassion, ethics and argument to a matter of law, legislation and mandated budgetary disbursement. One of my deepest personal hopes is for a generally just society. So far in my life's travels and learnings I have not found that the dynamics of "market logic" or "wealth conservation" lead to a just distribution of the "goods" in life. Perhaps a few of the ideas that have surfaced in this series may be used to increased linkage between the processings of our "global justice discussion", however disjointed, and the implementation of a just system for distributing goods to all who are part of the human community]

To Start (from a rough approximation of the conclusion of earlier entries {see reference list at bottom of this entry}):

Satisifaction of Basic Needs:
Teachers deserve support for the basic needs of existence (food, shelter, education, health support and more) for them and theirs (as do all of us).

Reward According to Merit:
Further, they deserve, after after all of us have received support for our basic needs, a division of what remains that is in proportion to the quality of their educational service. (Educational service is measured one person at a time; it is measured in terms of individual growth.).

Giving Back According to Abilities:
In return, each teacher is obliged to contribute to the survival and growth of the collective enterprise (the school in which they work, the society of which they are a part) in accordance with her or his abilities and, in accord with school's and society's needs.

Let's start with the proposition that professors and teachers are all, primarily, educators. If we assume this then it would follow that the basic reasoning about pay would be similar. Professors , too, would be paid a salary would reflect her/his basic needs, the quality of her/his instruction and would also require a give-back to school and society in proportion to abilities and the needs of the systems of which s/he would be a part.

If we follow typical reasoning concerning an individual's costs of education for one's professional position we would then pay teacher or professor an annual salary increment based on the amount of relevant training s/he has undergone.

In this version of a just world (the teacher and professor part) we would expect to see the highest paid to be those who are highly effective as educators and who have required/acquired the most training for her/his position. It would not be surprising to see teachers with higher pay than some professors, for example. The basic needs portion (the largest percentage, one would expect) would be exactly equivalent. In short, and leaving out considerations of experience/longevity within a system, teachers and professors live who have comparable training and comparable educational effect on students would receive equivalent pay; the pay scale could be the same. Another take on the same general situation: if teacher and professor were equally effective with students, their pay would only differ if training necessary for position were different.

[Topics for future consideration:

• What about market forces?
• What about "professorial scholarship" as knowledge-making? What is it and how would it figure in?
• To what degree is educational effect a comparable concern in higher education versus elementary, middle and secondary education? Should it be?]

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Recent justice related entries (from most recent) as well as links to Corning and Deutsch materials.

1. A Just Teacher Pay System (3): How Does It Compare In which I compare one version of the Fair Shares system with a "typical" teacher pay system.
2. A Just Teacher Pay System (2): Fair Shares. In which I explain my application of Peter Cornng's Fair Shares system to teacher compensation packages. ( (:o[> link being a problem... it will show up as my weblog entry for January 25, 2004.)
3. Justice for Teachers In which I introduce two teachers with no difference in pay, or background, or training, or load, or student population served. However, one is clearly more effective in nurturing meaningful student achievement. Is this just?
4. Justice: A fair distribution of goods and harms (3). Implementation . In this piece I use Deutsch's distributive justice questions to examine typical teacher compensation approaches.
5. Justice: A fair distribution of goods and harms (2). Bio-logic. I discuss Peter Corning's Fair Shares approach to the distribution of 'goods'.
6. Justice: A fair distribution of goods and harms (1) John Rawls' approach to defining justice is outlined.
7. See my full teacher justice story for a more comprehensive treatment. (I decided it was too long for a weblog entry-- plus it needed a little more 'fire' --personality. Thus the sequence of shorter entries [today's entry being the third].)
8. See also Corning, Peter A. , In Press, "Fair Shares: Beyond Capitalism and Socialism. The Biological Basis of Social Justice", in Politics and the Life Sciences) (Click here for a pdf copy of the document and here to see his "Complex Systems" website).
9. Deutsch, Morton (1978), Distributive Justice, Yale University Press, pp 2-4.