A couple of points.
* Most school districts have longer school years than 9 months. San Diego unified is closer to 10 months. (Gets out mid June, teacher report back mid-August.)
* The OP talked about a high school math/physics teacher. So it’s reasonable to compare education to an engineer. And the 70k salary suggests a masters degree. San Diego Unified posts their salary grades online. It maxes out at 87.6k for a 200day contract – that’s for a teacher with a masters, plus 90 additional academic units, plus max tenure.
I’m an engineer. I’ve known well paid engineers who didn’t even have a bachelors degree – worked they’re way up from being a tech or started in some other field and ‘fell into’ software or embedded programming. Some were talented… some more talented than their coworkers who had advanced engineering degrees.
I’ve also know well paid engineers who are NOT worth the salary their paid. I think there are losers and lazy people in every field.
