Good thing there's always a budget to build newer fancier schools, but not to pay teachers livable wages, cause that makes sense.
My favorite teacher was my AP calc teacher in high school. She only graded during her planning session, never worked overtime, let us not only fix a broken classroom computer that the school basically abandoned but we also take turns playing GTA on it during lectures. Almost everyone in the class passed the AP exam. She was in MENSA and left a lucrative career fixing math for defense contractors because she just wanted to teach. There just aren't enough people with those kinds of chops to go around, regardless of the salary we are willing to pay.
In (good) mathematics lessons, very little of the time is spent explaining the theory. Instead a lot time is spent doing exercises – both the teacher demonstrating and the students trying it out them selves. At that point the teaching becomes reactive, as the student get stuck and you help them figure it out. This requires little prep (basically finding good exercises).
In other subjects there is much more story telling and explaining. And it requires much more preparations in order to make it interesting, and keeping all kinds of details fresh in your mind.
As for grading, grading mathematics is quick and mechanical. While correcting an essay is a lot more draining.
So, I do not think talent is actually what is deciding factor here. The way you phrase it, it sounds to me like "Oh, if the teacher were better at their job they would have to work a lot less".
>"Oh, if the teacher were better at their job they would have to work a lot less".
I'm 100% saying exactly that. This is true of basically every profession. Some people are more effective/efficient/faster than others.
Sometimes HN takes too much of a SV-centric view, especially in terms of wages.
So, yes, maybe median is not bad. But starting out -- especially in a city -- seems really bad.
Especially when you factor in almost all of these teachers have college debt of about $30k+ to pay off...
That same link shows that the median teacher salary in California is $82k, which is still 17% above the median household income in California [1]. The average student loan debt is right around $30k [2], so above average wages combined with average student loan debt shouldn't be construed as unlivable, unless that term is extended way beyond the plight of teachers (which may still be fair).
Again, it should be taken in context (outside the SV bubble). I know engineers who started at <$40k (albeit a few years back during the recession)
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSCAA646N
[2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2017-economic-we...
