In the last issue I wrote about two graphs comparing the relative expenditures on education across countries and US states. I also found this one, showing the ‘teacher penalty’ across countries— how much less teachers earn than similarly educated non-teachers. 

• You will find the US at the extreme right of the graph, saved from last place only by Victor Orban’s Hungary. 
• One of the standard explanations for low teacher pay has been that most teachers were women, who were historically paid less.  But that’s true in almost every country—and some of those have no teacher pay penalty.  That suggests that the cause is the current ‘War on Schools’ rather than history.
• Notice that primary-grades teachers make less than secondary-grades teachers everywhere except Australia and Lithuania. 
• Finland, with the highest-rated schools (by test scores but also other measures) pays teachers slightly more in secondary but pays primary teachers less.
• Costa Rica (with the second highest %GDP spent on education, last issue) pays teachers well but they are federal employees and are usually assigned to remote rural communities for their first few years.

David  de Leeuw

OEA retired