Those on the left are wont to complain that government employees are under assualt these days because GOP politicians are going after public sector unions and generous deals they’ve leveraged through collective bargaining. The standard defense of civil service workers is, yes, they might have good benefits and more job stability but these things are necessary because public sector workers earn significantly less than private sector counterparts.

Well, a new study by the American Enterprise Institute’s Andrew Biggs and Jason Richwine from the Heritage foundation concludes that America’s public school teachers are just flat out overpaid. The headline numbers from the study are this: Teacher pay nationally is about $120 billion over market value, and teachers who switch to teaching from other jobs get a 9 percent pay rise, while people who leave teaching typically take a 3 percent pay cut.