Teachers Pay - Sir Michael Wilshaw’s Labour Supply Curve

England’s chief inspector of schools Sir Michael Wilshaw has been in the news again today giving an interview to The Times. The controversial Sir Michael has suggested that teachers who wish to increase their salary should work that ‘extra mile’ and stay at school beyond the 3pm buzzer. Sir Michael is fast becoming the Joey Barton of the education world – the public are split between those who loathe him with a passion and those who think he’s just a misunderstood genius who’s gotten in with the wrong crowd. The article did, however, get me thinking about how I might present Sir Michael’s argument in a lesson discussing the incentive of wages and the supply of labour by an individual (my A2 students would love a discussion about ‘lazy’ teachers).

If one assumes that Sir Michael is correct and many teachers leave their job at 3pm then this would suggest that a full-time teacher would work for 27.5 hours a week (being generous to teachers here by assuming that they start at 8.45 am and only take 45 minutes for their lunch) and we assume a nationally agreed set wage (ignoring any experience-based incremental wages), what would the labour supply curve of a teacher look like currently and what would it look like if you paid that teacher per hour of work?

I’ve drawn the diagram as I would use here . Feel free to disagree!

Of course, any evaluative argument about this model would have to include a discussion about the time a teacher might use at home undertaking marking, preparation and keeping up-to-date with their subject by reading Tutor2U regularly.

PS. If you have a Kindle (or the Kindle app) and want a great read then follow this link for a superb novel about a rather lazy teacher asked to produce this year’s school play. The chapter about when the main protagonist’s school has an Ofsted inspection is my highpoint.