Some people think teachers are overpaid--I get e-mail about it all the time. Other people think teachers are underpaid. I get a lot of that e-mail too.

I was going to weigh in with my own opinion when I realized I couldn't, because I didn't know how much teachers make--or how much anyone else makes, for that matter, except for a few well-known CEOs and sports stars.

I said to myself, "Get some facts before shooting your mouth off, Tamim." (I learned that from a teacher.)

Lucky for me, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) researches salary issues. I found their Web site, and here's what they report:

The average American public school teacher, kindergarten through high school, makes $44,367.*

Salaries vary from state to state, with South Dakota coming in last at $31,383 a year, and California leading the way at $54,348.

Is $44,367 a lot, or a little? I couldn't tell, so I dug up salary averages for a few other professions. Here's how they stack up:

I can hear some of you out there saying, "Sure, teachers make less than doctors, big deal. Isn't that fair?" Underpaid, overpaid, it only means something in comparison to how much a person should be paid, right?

But that's a big can of worms. How much "should" anyone be paid? And how do we judge "should"?

* Salary data are from the Survey and Analysis of Teacher Salary Trends 2002, published by the American Federation of Teachers, and from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.