“Well this is all a practical application of the labor market, and what I think our state leaders recognize is that you don’t have one labor market for teachers. You actually have several,” he says.

“For example, for experienced teachers many of whom are perhaps close to retirement -- they are very much less likely to leave. One reason being is if they are close to retirement, there is a heavy penalty if you don’t fill out those 30 years and get full retirement.

“So very practically the state decided that they could give those folks perhaps a lower raise because, again, more than likely they are not going anywhere.

“But the inexperienced teacher -- the young teacher who hasn’t been in the system very long -- they are not looking at retirement right now; they are looking at their pay and they are looking at what other opportunities they may have to work.

“They are much more likely to leave and take a different kind of job, so again our legislators decided those folks, if we are going to keep them, they need to get a much higher pay raise.”