Education: Teacher's Pay

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After five years as a New Jersey schoolteacher, Edward M. Hough, 28, took one more look at his five-day job—at $74 a week—and decided that he was through. He liked his job teaching fifth grade at Trenton's McClelland School, and, with a master's degree in education behind him, he had long planned to make teaching his career. But he also had to support his wife and three-year-old twins, and to make ends meet, he was on a treadmill of odd jobs outside of school hours: bill collecting, refereeing occasional basketball and football games, pumping gasoline at a neighborhood filling station. With all the extra work, he was still not making enough —not nearly as much as he could get as a truck driver (a possible $120 a week) or as full-time filling-station man.

Last week Hough was settled in a new and better-paying job, as lessee of a filling station on his own. His starting income there was $100 a week, and the prospects looked good for making more. With him, as the station's manager, was another ex-teacher, Walter E. Almond, 30. Almond, also an M.A. and formerly a handicrafts instructor at Trenton's Junior High School No. 3, had had to supplement his $74 a week by working as a part-time painter, auto mechanic and roofer. Like Hough, he regretted leaving his profession. His starting salary at Hough's filling station: $85.