Originally Posted by kane

I could make the argument that if paid teachers more the quality of education would go up. The main problem is that there are many other outside factors that contribute to this including standardized testing, curriculum and others and the ability of some teachers just to coast along and never having to worry about getting fired.

When I was in high school I remember several teachers that clearly just didn't give a shit. Once of them each week would just stand in front of the class and read the chapter in the book and we would follow along and take notes then on Friday we took a test and could use our notes. It only took a few weeks before you figured out what stuff to write in your notes and you would get an A every time. Teachers like that are doing the students no good.

That said, in theory, if teaching jobs paid more you would have more people wanting to go into that field and you would be able to select higher quality candidates. It is similar to sports. If you are going to build a good team you need good players (teachers), but you also need to have good coaches (administration) and good ownership (school board/government).