Excellent point. We're also getting a bunch of very passionate people for whom teaching is a calling, and then I hate to say mediocre folks because why would the high achieves go into a profession with such low pay? (I did but I'm a high achiever with the calling, so much the worse for my pocketbook.)
I have to take issue with this idea. In California, teacher pay is high. The average salary in my county is $75,000 a year, and it's $68,000 overall in the state. This is for nine months of work. That's a GOOD salary. And we still have mediocre results (our test scores are near the bottom in reading and math). California schools have the same problems that other states have. And half of the state budget goes to education, yet they still want more money.
Personally, I'm convinced that our society oversimplifies the problems with our schools with claims that everything would get better if only the teachers got paid more and if only the class sizes were smaller. It's a complex problem.
And there are LOTS of people who go into professions for reasons other than pay (your post could be taken as implying that professions with low pay attract only mediocre types because people are only interested in money).
