"Matt Damon Will Make His Next 3 Flicks for Typical Teacher's Salary" Reports No One Cuz it's Not True

This video has been making the rounds on facebook and the interwebs (and I'm told TMZ) mainly on the buzz supplied by teachers and pro-teacher-minded individuals thinking that Matt Damon makes some amazing point here. I find this notion totally off-base.

First, let me say that I think what Damon says, as a factual matter, is likely pretty true: many people become teachers because they have a passion or overwhelming desire to do so. And, within reason, "shitty salaries" will not cause them to choose a different career path. Fine, great. But even accepting this as true, it is quite a leap to say that financial issues create no incentives whatsoever, and/or that those who are driven to teach no matter what the salary are thusly and by definition good teachers.

I happen to believe that teachers should be paid a lot more than they are currently. The main reason I believe this is that higher pay will attract more people to the teaching profession, and that will in turn raise the quality of teachers we're putting in front of our children. I feel as though the world is full of anecdotal evidence of people who might like to teach or have taught but are also skilled at and passionate about science, or writing, or business and they end up pursuing careers in those fields instead. Higher salaries would entice some of those folks to become teachers, or stay in the teaching profession. And yes, I believe that nearly everyone considers salary as a meaningful factor when picking a career path, whether or not it is the most important one.

So, if I believe all of those things, I don't really see how I can agree with Matt Damon at all. I'm almost waiting for some talking head idiot to appear on Fox News and cite this video as reasons why we should be paying teachers less as a way to save government money. Because Matt Damon says they will work for any amount of money!

None of this is to say that Matt Damon sounds particularly dumb here (I actually agree with his larger argument about less standardized tests, and more teacher autonomy). He's been put on the spot, and he's really pushing back against a larger argument of using free market principles generally to improve teachers' performance, a much murkier and complicated set of issues beyond just salaries. But based on the words that actually come out of his mouth, this one minute video, the argument he makes isn't all that pro-teacher.

That brings us back to my confusion. Teachers and pro-teacher folks seem to love this video, but, assuming they think teachers deserve higher salaries, what exactly is their case for why? Whatever it is, it certainly can't involve the notion that paying teachers more will improve the quality of teaching. At least not according to Matt Damon.