Teachers in the United States earn less relative to national income than their counter-par

ts in many industrialized countries, yet they spend far more hours in front of the classroom, according to a major new international study.

The salary differential are part of a pattern of relatively low public investment in education in the United States compared with other member nations of the organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group in Paris that compiled the report. Total government spending on educational institutions in the United States slipped to 4. 8 percent of gross domestic product in 1998, falling under the international averages—5 percent for the first time. "The whole economy has grown faster than the education system," Andreas Schleicher, one of the report's authors, explained. "The economy has done very well, but teachers have not folly benefited. " The report, due out today, is the sixth on education published since 1991 by the organization of 30 nations, founded in 1960, and now covering much of Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

In addition to the teacher pay gap, the report shows the other countries have begun to catch up with the United States in higher education: college enrollment has grown by 20 percent since 1995 across the group, with one in four young people now earning degrees. For the first time, the United States'college graduation rate, now at 33 percent, is not the world's highest. Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Britain have surpassed it. The United States is also producing fewer mathematics and science graduates than most of the other member states. And, the report says, a college degree produces a greater boost in income here while the lack of a high school diploma imposes a bigger income penalty. The United States has the highest level of high school graduates aged 55 to 60, but falls to fifth, behind Norway, Japan, South Korea, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, among ages 25 to 34. Among college graduates, it leads in the older generation but is third behind Canada and Japan in the younger cohort.

From the passage we know that teachers in the United States

A．contribute to national income less than their counterparts in many industrialized countries

B．have a heavier classroom load than their counterparts in many industrialized countries

C．earn less than the international average

D．earn less because of the worse economic condition