The problem with the teacher pay to me is obvious, market forces aren't allowed to play themselves out.

Think about it: A teacher should be paid according to their skill, supply, and demand. A great teachers time is highly valuable and there should never be a cap on how much they make or considerations on such an important task to hinder on concepts such as tenure.

If I hire a private teacher for my kids to teach them programming, I know that a great teacher has options to go work anywhere and I need to pay enough to afford a good one. I might get a couple friends kids to join to afford his time. Put together a few different subjects and all of the sudden you have a school.

So the question is why is this simple concept not being followed? The answer is lack of accountability, artificial barriers to entry, limitations on control to pick your instructors, standardized testing requirements, checkbox mentality, teachers unions, etc.

I think Steve Jobs was right in this regard, if we're going to continue to coerce money out of peoples paychecks to fund a dilapidated educational system, we are much better off giving the money we spend on a kids education directly to the parents (with the obligation to spend it only on education), and letting them select the course of education for their own kids themselves.

As for these "unions" its not so much that they care about the kids as they care about themselves. They just use the kids as leverage to get subsidies.

I live in Chicago and my apartment is across the street from a public school. They were outside picketing when I left for work this morning. I feel conflicted, on one hand, I support our teachers and want them to be compensated fairly. On the other hand, Mayor Lightfoot is trying to balance a budget in a city that notoriously has issues managing its money. I hope this gets resolved soon with minimal impact to students, who are really the ones getting gyped here.