NYTimes Earns Profit on Lesson Plans; Questions Teachers Who Do Same

Sunday morning’s New York Times brought with it a front-page story on teachers selling their lesson plans for profit. The gist: Teachers work hard, but aren’t paid enough for their work. This is what economists call a market inefficiency. And so there are a bunch of teachers turning to the private market, shopping their lesson plans around like they’re at an educational bazaar. Other teachers, apparently in surplus of both funds and laziness, are willing to buy.

Reporter Winnie Hu does what she can to lend the trend story gravitas, dutifully collecting views from both sides. Teachers should be doing their own work, say the detractors. If teachers are going to work this hard, they should profit from it as much as possible, say the benefactors. This back and forth is what happens when education’s profit-motive is made explicit. The acknowledgment that pursuit of money might be getting in the way of a child’s education is always divisive, even though money plays a (hidden, seldom discussed) role throughout education.

It should be said, though, that the Times is engaged in its own version of lesson-plan revenue. Tucked away on NYTimes.com is a blog called “The Learning Network,” an interesting little project where the Times ... wait for it ... offers lessons plans to teachers. The lesson plans are based on Times stories, and they’re really just suggested questions for conversations and to test for reading comprehension. An article about America’s search for an Olympic figure skater, for example, is supplemented by a parade of Whos, Whats, Wheres, Whens, Whys, and Hows. The kicker, of course, is that the Times is running ads against the page, therefore profiting from the very thing it questioned in its cover story. On second thought, it’s actually not that surprising. If there’s anybody who can empathize with not getting paid for their hard work, it’s those who work in the newspaper industry.