A novel way to think about teacher pay




South Korea is able to pay teachers high starting salaries because it employs relatively fewer than other nations. As a result, the student-teacher ratio in South Korea is 30:1, compared to the OECD average of 17:1.

It's a smart tradeoff because studies show that teacher quality has significantly more impact on student outcomes than class size. Dollar for dollar, it's better to attract a small number of outstanding educators with high starting salaries than to attract a large number of mediocre ones with lower starting salaries ? even if that means having a high student-teacher ratio.

The moral of the story? Beware of drawing simple conclusions from misleading infographics. They can conceal much more than they reveal.