I agree CA teachers are overpaid, along with so many other fat (taxpayer funded) state/local salaries for police, firefighters..etc.
My wife only got her teaching degree in like 2007. Now she’s making 75K/year and she gets 3.5 months vacation each year PLUS her benefit package is AT LEAST $20,000/year equivalent richer than my private sector job benefits package. Plus of course CA taxpayers are funding her growing pension package.
The only thing I had better acknowledge is that her particular pay scale is a bit higher because she teaches in one of the higher paying districts in the Bay Area. She also has a graduate degree and multiple teaching “credential” certificates, each of which bumps up her pay under CA teachers pay rules.
I’m a Masters-degreed engineer with a strong 20-year resume working for big name Blue Chips, and I’m making $120K/year not including profit sharing and options. And I work my ass off for 60 hrs a week with maybe 3 weeks vacation.
I look at her salary and 3.5 months vacation and I think she’s getting a better deal than me. She’s overpaid! I would become a teacher (if CA actually was hiring teachers, which it isn’t)
I’m not stupid, so naturally I got myself listed under her FREE (to us) rich cushy benefits package (health, dental, vision, etc) not my employer’s lame (yet high out of pocket cost) private sector package. So you taxpayers are even paying for my health care package because I’m a teacher’s spouse!