All joking aside, I dated a private school teacher who was trying to get certified for teaching in public schools. Private school was paying her about 40 grand a year, and she lived in an expensive part of NJ.

She had two masters’ degrees, spoke the languages she wanted to teach fluently (knowing one of them from childhood). Yet the certification process was still mind-numbingly bureaucratic, bordering on the insane.

If teachers are subjected to that level of crap at work as well as before employment, no wonder that many of them are sick and stressed.

And remember that the 180-200 days that school is in session is only a part of it. They still have to do grading, professional development, curriculum design, etc outside of school hours. Plus quite a few of them are roped into teaching summer school and things like that.

Unless you come from money, have no student loan debt, or are willing to put up with a lot of crap, public school teaching doesn’t seem like an easy business.