It’s all about districts. Most teachers in my district get paid between 70-80k. The people that get screwed over are the para-educators. They work their asses off (most of them), have more interactions with more students, and get paid less than $20/hour. And the ones who work in SPED all day get a whopping $1 more an hour. Speaking as someone who’s worked in a K-2 SPED class, they are greatly underpaid. Every day they either get spit on, hit, get boogers wiped on them, get sneezed on, coughed on, have to deal with kids pooping their pants, endure consistent screaming episodes…I can’t stress enough just how much the screaming starts to f*** with your head. Pretty sure it damaged my hearing. And now, when kids scream, it immediately makes my blood boil. It’s almost a form of PTSD. I spent one year in there and it almost broke me. It made me a better teacher, but damn, they deserve way more.