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The issue of paying elementary teachers the same as HS teachers has come up before in FOIA Gras comments. Teachers' expertise is in education, and that means different things at different grade levels. However, it doesn't mean that a K teacher's expertise is less valuable than a HS teacher's expertise. Commenters have been quick to jump on, "well an AP Physics teacher should make more than an elementary teacher because the subject matter is more difficult." First, I'm betting most of us had more than one teacher in HS who definitely understood the material, but couldn't teach it to save their souls ("Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?" trope). More to the point, center education as the expertise, not the subject. A K teacher is taking a group of 5 year olds, many of them who have never been in a classroom before, and not only establishing norms for classroom behavior but ALSO teaching the basics of math, reading, etc. That is centering education. As Mary Alice Off commented already on this, look at a 5th grade teacher who not only has behavior issues from some students, but massively different levels of reading (math, etc.) ability and is teaching to all of these kids at the same time. An argument could be made that elementary teaching is more difficult than high school, and we should be making more money. Instead, can we just get rid of the pay gap and pay all educators more?

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