One notion, then, since paying people seems to bring up so much emnity, is how about giving the teachers $10/yr expense accounts instead/as well. What's so heartbreaking about paying schoolteachers so damned little, isn't that they make so little, though that is a travesty in and of itself, but that they have to make a choice between spending money on food for themselves, and school supplies for the children they teach. Notebooks and pencils and shoes are the parents responsibility to purchase for their children, but what's a school teacher to do about a neglected child? A child who's parents can't or won't afford lunch for their kid? An expense account for the teachers would go a long way to improving student outcomes, without actually having to pay the teachers more, which seems to be controversial, for some reason.