Public school teachers are paid as well as similarly skilled private-sector workers but receive much better fringe benefits, concludes a study by Andrew G. Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and Jason Richwine, a Heritage Foundation policy analyst.

Public-school teachers earn less than non-teachers with the same level of education, but “teacher skills generally lag behind those of other workers with similar ‘paper’ qualifications,” they write.

Workers who switch from non-teaching jobs to teaching jobs receive a wage increase of roughly 9 percent. Teachers who change to non-teaching jobs, on the other hand, see their wages decrease by roughly 3 percent. This is the opposite of what one would expect if teachers were underpaid.

Public-school teachers contribute less than private-sector workers for generous pensions and retiree health coverage.

Factoring in the value of more generous fringe benefits and greater job security, public teachers receive compensation 52 percent greater than market levels, equivalent to more than $120 billion a year, Biggs and Richwine conclude.

Update:  Here’s more on the study, plus a reaction from American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who charged the AEI report “uses misleading statistics and questionable research.”

“If teachers are so overpaid, then why aren’t more ’1 percenters’ banging down the doors to enter the teaching profession?” Weingarten asked in the release, referring to higher-income Americans. “Why do 50 percent of teachers leave the profession within three to five years, an attrition rate that costs our school districts $7 billion annually?”

 If teachers earn the same as comparable private-sector workers but eventually qualify for a better pension (and job security tied to seniority), a high attrition rate among new teachers isn’t surprising:  New teachers often get the toughest assignments and the fewest perks.