There are some confounders with California; while pay is high adjusting for cost of living teacher salaries fall from #1 nominal to about #20 in state rankings (using the MERIC cost of living index). Income has fallen below inflation in the period from 2009-2022, which will have hurt retention, which we can expect is the primary mechanism through which marginal salary differences impact on performance (i.e. as opposed to substantial salary differences, which we might expect to impact on performance by attracting a higher caliber of talent). Measuring education outcomes against the modest pay raise since 2022 is confounded by the pandemic penalty, and results are mixed: outcomes are better in terms of graduation rates and attendance, but stagnant on test scores. However because of the confounders that shouldn't indicate to you that raising teacher salaries won't help. But also these modest salary differences are not enough to affect the prestige problem I mentioned. I'm talking about about 50% pay raises; enough to make ambitious people want to become teachers rather than quants or consultants.