Teacher pay is the last thing that should be investigated at this point. Not the first. Social services would be a much better starting point. Every time someo

Teacher pay is the last thing that should be investigated at this point. Not the first. Social services would be a much better starting point. Every time someone mentions teachers pay relationship to education/grade quality I think they simply haven't taken a step back to compare against alternatives and looked at the numbers (adjusted). Sure a bad system will have marginally better performance when you throw money at it, but that is practically a given and doesn't provide proper systemic evaluation. On average private school teachers make significantly less... http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=55 http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=55 And on average private school highschoolers have better or equal grades... (adjusted for student characteristics) http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006461.asp http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006461.as... Public school per student cost: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66 http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66 (The above cost is excepted as an undercount by every source I can find though there is dispute by how much, see: "They Spend WHAT? The Real Cost of Public Schools" and a rebuttal here: http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-they-spend-what http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-they-spend-what that agrees with the undercounting but disagrees with CATO institutes exact figures). Cost per student and a rebuttal/additional findings: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303822204577468783242379036.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230382220457746... http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-08-31/news/36831030_1_religious-affiliation-private-schools-school-vouchers http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-08-31/news/36831030_... Taking into account "cost per student" grades are the same or better with equivalent spending and are simply more cost efficient teaching systems. All this is without further drilling down into private school methodology to identify the highest efficiency implementations (the NAEP study suggests that the lutherans might be a one of several starting points for that investigation). When you are putting people into a flawed system with perverse incentives, throwing money at the people involved is a poor attempt at a solution and is "mostly" a red herring. If the claim is that these grade differences aren't really an education but a cultural and societal issue (ask yourself why "schools of choice" perform better?) than it needs to be addressed as such using a change in methodology and improvements in social services systems/spending.