I know I'm late to the party, but I just wanted to chime in on the state of education in Utah.
I've been teaching for seven years now. I love my job. I got my Masters Degree a few years ago in Educational Technology and Instructional Design, and I don't make anywhere near the 65K that was cited earlier. Every summer since I've been teaching, I've been taking classes, attending workshops, or traveling, frequently on my own dime, to find resources to help improve my teaching. Summer of 2008, I had three weeks "off" where I wasn't doing something; 2009 I was down to two weeks off. During that time, I'm also required to attend meetings for my school, district, and for the State Office of Education, without getting paid. Sometimes I'll get lunch out of it. A lot of that is extra stuff that I do because I either want to be a better teacher or as "networking opportunities," but much of it is required. We also don't get any other "vacation days" during the school year, so if I want to take my family on a trip, it'll be in the summer with everyone else.
BUT for many of the teachers, I don't think it's a matter of salary as much as it is the expectations of the job vs. the tools we're given to do the job. We have the largest class size in the nation, with the lowest amount of money spent per pupil. This year I have 210 students spread across six class periods, so the class size ranges from 32 - 38, depending on where they need the kids. I've presented at national conferences where teachers will share their stories about their classrooms, where they have 18 students per classroom, with a full time adult aide "to help them bear that load." Utah has trained us to think that public education should be a certain way, and we make do.
On the whole, our schools are still successful (as measured by national standardized tests), and I do attribute that more to the efforts of families and individual students than the teachers and the education system we're locked into. I would like to see changes, in the form of merit pay (based on a combination of student achievement, parent/student surveys, and administrative review), instead of a purely tenure-based system.
I do think the starting salary for teachers is an embarrassment, and I applaud former Governor Huntsman for his efforts to increase that salary. My first year, I made 18,000 for the year, and that was very difficult. Now I'm around 45,000. Some days, I feel very overpaid. Some days, not so much. I think there are many teachers who are a whiny, overprotected lot, and it's largely those people who have never worked in any other field. They don't realize quite how good they've got it. I also think there are people in the Legislature who have an ax to grind against education, and others in the private sector who want to treat education like business, assuming that anyone can do that job, and don't understand why the output isn't measuring up to what we're putting in.
My experience so far is that most Utah teachers aren't in it for the money anyway, they're in it because they want to help children. They were told they'd have job security (and they do, to an extent), health and retirement benefits, and a certain pay schedule. Now many of those things are in jeopardy, as they are for many millions of us in this economy. From last year to this year, my monthly take home pay dropped by a few hundred dollars. I'm hopeful that this will rebound, but for now I'm lucky that I have a job, and I have a job I love.
I guess that's my two cents.
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Future Mayor, I love how the Philadelphia convention center and hotel is set up, and its location is a wonderful jumping-off point to explore the city. I think it's the only one in this discussion that I've actually been to, but I liked how it was integrated into a very dense part of town. 
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