[rhelz]

Not trolling. What, pray tell, is a fair wage? Who gets to decide?

// people who took years out of earnings to learn a new skill //

Here in Indiana, you have to have a Master's degree to be a teacher. Average wage is around $50k. Or you could get a B.S. in communications an and make 2-3x that doing P.R.

Or you could just drop out of high school to become a "creator" at only fans and make zillions a year taking pictures of your toes.

If you want a system which rewards years of learning new skills, this one ain't it.

[jonhohle]

A fair wage is what the market will pay. Unfortunately for most teachers, there is not a fair market, but a vise with government and unions on either side they’ve created for themselves. Also, when teacher salaries are evaluated at an hourly rate (30 hour weeks, 11-weeks of vacation per year), it’s not as bad as it seems.*

* My wife was a teacher, my parents were teachers, my aunts and uncles were teachers, my grandparents were teachers, my kids are in school and I deal with their teachers. I’m sympathetic to the profession, and have also watched how those steering the ship head right for the iceberg while telling everyone warming them that they aren’t educators so they couldn’t possibly understand. I’m fine letting them lie in the bed they’ve made while getting paid a zillion times more being an IC at a company on one has ever heard of.

[rhelz]

// A fair wage is what the market will pay //

Well, I wouldn't go that far (cf. my example above on the pay differential between the oldest profession and the second-oldest profession) But it does at least set prices in a way which both buyer and seller agree on.

// they aren't educators, etc //

You have a way to let teachers make substantially larger wages? Let's hear it:-)

[jjtheblunt]

Private tutor?

[rhelz]

What's stopping teachers from being private tutors now?

[jjtheblunt]

Good question

[rhelz]

The answer is that being a private tutor, on average, pays even less than they make now.

You know how I know that? Because they aren’t already doing that.

How many families could afford the salary of even one teacher?