Teacher-Pay Alternatives May Be Found in Other Nations

The United States isn’t the only country struggling to attract and keep well-qualified teachers.

But compensation strategies being tried in other industrialized nations could give U.S. policymakers some new ways to address the issue, says a report out last week from the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank.

“Shortages of qualified teachers are pervasive in all advanced industrial countries today,” write the authors, Susan K. Sclafani, a former assistant U.S. secretary of education for vocational and adult education, and Marc S. Tucker, the president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, a Washington-based research and advocacy group. “Like us, these countries are finding it especially difficult to recruit teachers in mathematics, sciences, technology and computer...