that teaching is about the lowest professional career in the country, and consequently has terrible turnover of the best teachers. And when the kids' teacher is the best thing outside of fixing people's home situation that we can do to improve schools, I think we need to look at paying to attract and retain the best teachers.

Teaching should be a career that is attractive so we have a surplus of applicants, not a shortage. We should be able to pick the best, not be satisfied with hiring temps because we didn't have enough full time, qualified applicants (this is happening in many places in the country today).

What that salary should be? I don't know, but definitely more than starting at $35K a year.