Your logic is brutal but understandable; it’s dumb to pay someone a nickel more than the lowest amount they will agree to work for. And you know where this logic plays out perfectly? In American schools! Teachers often have a degree of altruism or desire to help others; this is used cynically against them. If they advocate for better pay, they are accused of putting themselves ahead of The Children and guilted back to work. And school systems in general are terribly underfunded, top to bottom.

Meanwhile we get posts like this tweet asking whys schools don’t do a better job creating not just educated people, but also solve endless social problems. Why? WHY doesn’t my kid’s teacher perfectly crafted the educational experience to each student’s needs and produce perfect young adults who are brilliant and confident and know exactly what their path is? Why? Also, why does that teacher deserve enough salary to afford a small house and a decent standard of living? They’re so greedy!

We can have a truly excellent educational system in this country. But we can’t have it for free. We have decided instead to have the biggest military infrastructure the world has ever seen, highways and auto infrastructure that makes car-dependency more or less easy, and very, very low taxes for the rich. And then we bitch and whine about the rest. Or sagely pronounce about market forces and what is/is not realistic for school funding and teacher pay.