I was always a "super-achiever" and received a National Merit Scholarship towards my college education, when I was young. Two fields I refused to consider at that point were "teaching" and "social work." Why? Because they were notorious for their low pay. My attitude was to leave that to the "under-achievers," who could not do anything else. The corporate world paid much more, and wanted people like me. They were willing to pay for my skills too.

So, I do think that Supt. Flanagan is correct. If you want to attract the best and the brightest to the field...the pay must be compensurate with what is available elsewhere.

I do believe that we should pay to attract quality teachers, but they should prove they are worth their pay. They cannot be allowed to hide under the guise of tenure or unions.

I do not believe that Troy Teachers are 16th in the state....my survey shows that there are Far more teachers making 100K in troy than all the rest of the districts in the state combined.....

State Superintendent Flanagan's comments show how much of Academia is out of touch with the real world. When teachers work full time 50 weeks a year and receive health and pension benefits comparable to the real world, they would merit such consideration.

The way you keep good teachers is with a good working environment where they can have input into their jobs, have admin that doesnt bully the parents and teachers.. its all about working with everyone Kathy Davisson knew how to do this.. parents and teachers liked working with her because she knew how to get along with everyone and how to work out the many issues that came about. You do not need to pay 100K... you need to treat ALL people with respect and work with everyone and listen to ALL input.

And then there are us parochial school teachers who make half of what public school teachers make. I have been teaching for 23 years at a Blue Ribbon School and I am finally making $35,000/year.

Some teachers are worth $100k; some are not. Superintendent Flanagan is proposing paying math and science teachers according to what their skills would be worth in the private sector (supply and demand). If they could also reward the dedicated ones and motivate mediocre teachers to care more about their students, it would be great.

A good high school math or science teacher should earn more than a good high school teacher that teaches other subjects, according to Flanagan. By extension of the logic, a high school teacher should also make more than an elementary school teacher. Let’s see how the MEA accepts that before agreeing to raise the salaries of all teachers at taxpayer expense, which is implied in the headline and the conclusion to the article.

To say all teachers should be paid $100k is nice, but that’s like saying all engineers, skilled tradespeople, office workers, restaurant managers and employees etc. should be paid the same. That would be nice if we had unlimited resources. But we don’t; besides, it is socialism.

For the second point on motivation, a good start would be to convince teachers that serving their customers (students and their parents) is more important than calling in sick to demonstrate for their union rights in Lansing.

26,000 Michigan students sat home recently while their teachers called in “sick” to exercise their right to protest what their elected officials were going to do anyway.

Professional educators could have used their writing skills to write a letter of protest instead or worked on organizing for the next election: on their own time, not their students’. The teachers who joined the Lansing protests en masse behaved unprofessionally.

BD: I am sorry you are so underpaid for what you do.

Dale: Perhaps we could cut the salaries of engineers in half. We could thank all the engineers for the work they do and that would "keep costs down for the rest of us."

Teachers everywhere: I am sorry for armchair educators who do not have a clue what you face each day. I am sorry for those who think educating children is a "business" and make assumptions about the demands of your career.

Our children: I am sorry we have driven competition, testing, and tremendous stress into your lives.

School administrators: I am sorry your decision making is now based on ensuring dollars come in and meeting metrics instead of educating ALL of our children.

I known many college grads with teaching degrees that get totally discouraged during the student teaching portion. They find they have no authority to teach. The standardize testing, union and politics have taken over the classroom to the point that they are just following the process. Allow teachers to express their heart and faith and they will come back to teaching.

Pay teachers $100,000, but cut their benefits to match the private sector. It's the unfunded pension and healthcare costs that are bankrupting the local and state governments. Pay teachers even more ... but make them pay for their own healthcare and 401Ks.

Troy teachers make up to $150K in salary and benefits for working a 7-hour day and a 9-month year. Their compensation is already exorbitant. Ratcheting up the pay component to $100K is a stupid idea.