> This seems to use private education as a benchmark for the entire argument. From quit rates, to pay, to conditions, and beyond, but ignores the obvious which

> This seems to use private education as a benchmark for the entire argument. From quit rates, to pay, to conditions, and beyond, but ignores the obvious which is that private pay and private conditions are largely pinned to be just above public salaries and conditions (meaning private education cannot be used as a benchmark for when someone is under-paid, over-qualified, or has too high of a quit rate because they are related). Huh? The article makes a ton of arguments. Most of which do not hinge on any comparison to private education. This is the most core argument being made: > Reporters might be more skeptical if they realized that EPI's own pay-gap methodology leads to some other conclusions that are, to put it delicately, less intuitive. Using the same Census data and the same basic techniques that EPI applies to teachers, we find that registered nurses are "overpaid" by 29%. Meanwhile, telemarketers deserve a big raise, as they currently suffer a 26% salary penalty. Aerospace engineers are apparently overpaid by 38%, but "athletes, coaches, and umpires" are paid 21% less than their skills are worth. Photographers should consider going on strike, as they make 16% less than comparable workers. Firefighters are moochers by contrast, taking in 25% above their rightful salaries. > If all this sounds ridiculous, it's because EPI's method is so simplistic. To arrive at its 21% pay gap, EPI merely compares teacher salaries with the salaries of people who have roughly the same number of years of education and the same demographic characteristics. More specifically, EPI performs a regression analysis using Census Bureau survey data, in which respondents provide information on their salaries along with their age, education, region of residence, marital status, and other factors that are predictive of earnings. Included in this analysis is a "dummy variable" indicating whether the individual is a public-school teacher. The coefficient on the dummy variable represents the effect on salary of being a teacher after controlling for all of the other factors listed above. Nowhere is private education mentioned.