On Saturday, Bernie Sanders posted on X, pushing for higher teacher pay with his usual flair. He shared a chart from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) showing that in 2023, U.S. primary school teachers started at $47,809—well behind countries such as Luxembourg at $81,768 and Germany at $77,547. Sanders also demanded a $60,000 minimum starting salary. Sanders claimed that to have the best-educated workforce, we need the best teachers, and that means paying them fairly for their “important work.”
We need the best educated workforce in the world.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 26, 2025
We need the best teachers in the world.
We need to pay our teachers fairly for the important work they do.
No teacher in America should begin at less than $60,000 a year. pic.twitter.com/62tSuq3n1m
It’s a classic left-wing talking point that we’ve been hearing for decades. The Democratic Party relies heavily on the support of teachers unions, and naturally, they are always demanding more pay and claiming, without evidence, that teachers are underpaid. I understand this is a controversial topic, and I don’t doubt that there may be a few public school teachers among our readers here at PJ Media, or you may have a spouse or relative who is a teacher. But, honestly, I have to say that I have yet to see any convincing evidence that teachers aren’t already overpaid for the job they’re doing.
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In fact, the data suggests they’re getting more than they deserve. A 2011 Heritage Foundation study I came across shows that when you factor in benefits—pensions, retiree healthcare, job security—public school teachers “make total compensation 52 percent greater than fair market levels, equivalent to more than $120 billion overcharged to taxpayers each year.”
Despite this, teachers’ unions, keep demanding more.
I see the collapse of public school standards firsthand. When I compare the work I was doing in fifth grade to what my son brings home today, the difference is staggering. The books he’s assigned in school are far below the level I was expected to read at his age—and far below what he reads on his own at home. Not surprisingly, he consistently tests well above his peers in reading, and I credit that entirely to the education he gets outside the classroom. It’s become painfully clear that today’s public education system isn’t interested in pushing kids to excel. Instead, it caters to the lowest common denominator, lowering standards to spare the feelings of students who otherwise wouldn’t keep up. In short, public education no longer allows bright kids to thrive.
But anecdotal evidence doesn’t mean a heck of a lot, does it?
The truth is that education standards have been sliding for decades, and teachers are failing at their core job. Earlier this year, a report from the Claremont Institute highlighted the declining standards of our public education system.
According to the article, the latest Nation’s Report Card shows that barely a quarter of American students are proficient in reading, with even worse results in math, geography, and U.S. history. Meanwhile, U.S. 4th and 8th graders are falling behind not just East Asian countries, but also places such as Poland, the U.K., South Africa, Turkey, and Sweden, all of which have improved their scores.
“Some of this can be blamed on the pandemic, but not all of it can,” the article explains. “According to the National Center for Education Statistics, between pre-pandemic 2019 and 2023, the average score for 4th graders on standardized math tests dropped by 18 points, while scores for 8th graders declined by 27 points. Overall, some 40% of all U.S. public school students fail to meet standards in either math or english, up 8% from pre-pandemic levels.”
The lockdowns may have accelerated the deterioration in testing, but scores have been dropping since 2015, and have continued to decline since the pandemic ended. In math, the OECD’s 2018 Program for International Student Assessment found that 36 countries outperformed the United States, including China, Russia, Italy, France, Finland, Poland, and Canada. This backs up the notion, recently expressed by Trump advisor Vivek Ramaswamy, that American kids lack the skills to compete with foreign workers.
But we are not just talking about elite skills. A recent federal survey suggests that 28% of Americans now occupy the lowest level of literacy, up from 19% in 2017. Schools have abandoned phonics and other effective approaches for “whole language” and other trendy theories, producing a population where 60% of 4th graders are poor readers. Attempts by parents to learn what their kids are actually experiencing in school creates problems, including the possibility of incurring large financial costs; in states like California, it is actually illegal for schools to inform parents about their children’s gender issues.
So why should teachers get a raise when they’re dropping the ball? Sanders can push his $60,000 minimum all he wants, but we don’t reward teachers who aren’t doing their job with more money. Public education in America is a bad joke, and until teachers start delivering results, they don’t deserve a dime more.
