I don't know who wrote this, but it's interesting

Pre-College Issues High School Life
41

<p>Low pay doesn’t lead to bad teachers, nor would high pay lead to significantly better teachers. For the most part, the wage is determined by supply and demand. There is a huge supply of teachers because it is a non-strenuous job that anyone with a college degree(in any subject and from any college) can perform. Demand is fixed insofar as the number of school-age children stays roughly constant. So we end up with a low-ish wage.</p>

<p>If anything, the wage for teachers is far higher than the market dictates because the government subsidizes education and because teachers are unionized. In a totally free market we could see teachers making 30k rather than 60k. </p>

<p>We can’t just sit back at our computers and decide what we think teachers should make. If we did this with everything, we would decide diamonds are worthless because they serve no important purchase like teachers do.</p>

42

<p>That argument is extremely flawed, unless you normally hire 5 babysitters to watch 5 kids.</p>

<p>To really see if teachers are paid a reasonable amount, figure it like this:</p>

<p>The average salary of 4-year college graduates is around $50-60,000. Teachers get more days off than people with almost any other job, and are paid on the low end of that range.</p>

<p>Sounds about right.</p>

43

<p>

</p>

<p>My large family gets by just fine on WAY less than that.</p>