With that said, I agree that teachers are massively underpaid. Teachers in general make 17% less than someone with a similar degree in other fields, and I'd argue they work harder than most (it's certainly more than a 9-5 job, as they work 10-hour days on average, plus prep time, grading, etc., and that's if you're not an arts teacher who has to go do performances, festivals, concerts, etc). Not to mention their benefits actually tend to suck, they usually end up putting their own money back into the school in the form of supplies, and that their pay has decreased dramatically (25 years ago, teachers were about 2% behind others with similar degrees).

And I will say, if you compare teacher quality (not getting into the other issues, just teacher quality) between public schools in Nevada, Arizona, and Utah with private schools (not Challenger or Magnate, but real private schools with teachers paid on average 20% more than public school teachers), the increase in quality is dramatic. Private schools tend to keep their good teachers, weed out the bad ones, and attract the best public school teachers too. So we know that the system would work, but you have to pay for it and we refuse to do so.

I will say, I've strongly considered talking to my partner about opening a branch office in Colorado (#30, so close to average) instead of having my kids go to school in Nevada (#49) or Arizona (#48) or New Mexico (#50) or Utah (#20 only because of high test scores because parents are so involved, to their credit; would be near the bottom if we removed that criteria).