We estimate that public-school teachers receive total compensation roughly 50 percent higher than they would likely receive in the private sector.

It is a view as ubiquitous as it is simplistic: To improve public education, pay teachers more—a lot more. Union officials, education reformers, scholars, laypeople, and politicians of all stripes endorse this principle in one form or another.

Research suggests that on average-counting salaries, benefits, and job security-teachers receive about 52 percent more than they could in private business.

What is of most concern is the crisis has spread to Italy and Spain, and even the French banks have trouble funding themselves. This isn’t just the European periphery. It’s the heart of the European banking system and the whole European experiment.

The real question isn’t whether we should pay all teachers more or less; it’s how to pay the right teachers more, in a way that serves students and maximizes the bang we get for the educational buck.

The broader issue of how we can rethink the teaching profession, make fuller use of talented teachers, and wisely spend the dollars we do have is more important than debating what the "right" wage level should be.

Response to Jeffrey Keefe’s review of “Assessing the Compensation of Public School Teachers.”

College rankings are useful in trying to distinguish the great from the mediocre and the good values from the rip-offs.