High-Tech Field Luring Teachers From Education

By Ann Bradley

High school teacher Mike Truitt made a job change 18 months ago that doubled his salary and halved his workweek. His new employer: Bill Gates.

Mr. Truitt, who is 30, spent four years teaching history and English before going to work for the Microsoft Corp., the world's leading software company, based in Redmond, Wash. In his new job, he's still a teacher of sorts, answering customers' questions about software over the telephone.

Equally important, he and his wife have been able to buy a house—a middle-class rite of passage that Mr. Truitt says would have been impossible on his $24,000 annual teaching salary. "I was looking at trying to start a family and support a family," he said recently. After briefly considering going into school administration, "it was time...