Misconception #14: We invest more in sports than schools

This misconception has been replaced by a newer version that more directly addresses the inaccurate claim that professional athletes make more money than teachers.

I have seen numbers that indicate that this country spends close to a trillion dollars every year on schooling. I have also seen numbers that indicate that sports see around half that amount. For some reason, teachers love to point out that we care more about funding sports than lining their wallets.

Actually, it’s pretty obvious what they are complaining about. The average teacher does not make nearly as much as the average elite-level athlete. Of course, that’s part of the problem with their argument. In sports, there is actually a term for a professional who doesn’t make enough money to live off of. They are referred to as semi-pro. The averages being used by teachers are skewed by eliminating any athlete who isn’t paid well. A more suitable comparison would be all teachers to all athletes or all elite athletes to all college professors carrying PhDs.

Have you ever wondered why elite athletes are paid so well? Let me follow that up with two relevant questions. How many teachers do you know? How many professional athletes do you know? Odds are, you know more teachers than athletes. This is because there are so many more teachers than athletes. The primary reason that elite level athletes are paid so well is because the revenue is split between a much smaller number of people.

Another reason that elite-level athletes are paid so well is due to the competitive nature of their employment. They have to prove themselves to be among the best in order to play at any level beyond semi-pro. Then, teams who want the best will fight with money to get the best players. Teachers simply have to be among the better applicants during the hiring process. You don’t have schools fighting over teachers as much as you have teachers fighting over opportunities.

If the teaching profession were run like elite-level sports, there is more than enough money for teachers to make far more than any athlete. If teachers really want to be paid that way, why don’t they agree to use that financial model. All it would require is for a supermajority of them to lose their jobs (resulting in much larger class sizes) based off of perceived value and continuous competition to keep their jobs. Will any teacher agree to those terms? Not a chance. If we treated them like we do elite-level athletes, they would only complain more.

I will agree with teachers on one thing. We do spend money more on sports than we do on education. The problem is that they incorrectly believe that education is synonymous with schooling. In this case, their two wrongs make them right.