Schools exist for the students.
Are the students first, or are the teachers first?
Most people understand the concept of paying more for a premium product.
Are the schools producing a premium product?
LOL...uh, no.
It is my contention that with government services (such as education) failure results in “higher profits” for the system.
If a truly excellent school produces truly excellent students, and comes before a local government and says “We want more money”, the government is likely to turn them down — you don’t need more money because you are doing an excellent job with the money you already have.
But if an awful school produces terrible students, the local government is likely to throw money at that problem. Higher salaries! More staff! Better lounge! More technology! Fix the problem!
Failure results in “higher profits” for the system.
There are different angles to all of this.
The students and their education should come first, in my opinion.
Then again, any job, teaching or any other, needs to pay enough to hire the best people they can find, to do the job.
How do we measure the productivity of teachers? Test scores? Based on test scores in many places, teachers are failing miserably. Then again, in school districts where certain groups deride doing well in school as “acting white”, the best teachers in the world will not be productive in student achievement.
I know some people in some different metropolitan areas around the country. From what I hear, some school districts within those metro areas pay more and have some better benefits than others. Teachers from the lower paid districts tend to be newer teachers, who work for a couple of years, then move on to the better paying districts. The lower paid districts are always having to recruit new teachers, and have a lack of more experienced teachers. Which in turn would affect teacher’s productivity in those school districts. The short answer would be, that you get what you pay for.
But then again, if students are ready to go to school and learn, the best teachers in the world won’t be able to do much with such students. If there isn’t good parental support, the best teachers won’t be able to do much.