This thread's refrain of "better pay" is starting to sound like the "not enough time" chorus that I hear from the public (and private) school teachers I've worked with my entire professional career.

Pay is not the heart of the matter.

It's about respect.

Respect for those who choose to teach -- absolutely.

But also respect for those learning.

And the pandemic put the lie to everything that we told our children about schooling.

Pay and other spending that our teachers and students touch and see can be signals of respect.

But as OP began to itemize only at the end of their post, there are many immaterial challenges to our teachers and schools.

No student -- or for that matter, parent -- would ask a teacher why they teach, and feel satisfaction with a response of "For the bucks." Quite the contrary.

And fundamentally, conveying to children that the adults around them "follow the money" does a poisonous disservice to the teachers (especially the Title I teachers I work with -- but the administrators, too) who have kept the faith through the pandemic.

I just came back from visiting half a dozen Title I classrooms in one of the few states larger than Pennsylvania -- and hanging out with those teachers late into the night. I heard them catch up with each other over pizzas and beers, and volunteer their backstories.

Could every single one of them earn much more in other fields? Yes. (Does this also reflect on their particular subject matter expertise? It does.)

But having seen them pouring their hearts into their craft by day, I know a light would extinguish in each if they did leave the profession.

Actually, about 36 lights per, times four or five preps.

(Further evidence that teachers are not in it for $: my current project doesn't compensate them any better than their union-mandated hourly. But still, they engage because they want to become better for their kids.)

To be clear ... our teachers definitely deserve better salary ... safer and more welcoming working conditions ... adequate supplies for which they don't pay out of pocket or resort to fundraising.

But no one has ever gone into education to make bank.

The teachers still teaching our children do so because of our children.

So respect for u/jekomo.

Can we respect OP's colleagues enough to get past/go deeper than "just throw money at it/them"?

'cause all the cheese in the world doesn't stand a chance "amid constant attacks, accusations of indoctrination, less teacher autonomy, etc."

These unpopular opinions brought to you by a proud graduate of this state's public schools who benefitted from its free and reduced lunch and summer programs, stayed in-state for college, holds teacher certification here, pays taxes here, and has worked on several multi-year, multi-million-dollar private and federally-funded educational efforts launched or co-designed by teachers.

P.S. It is not lost on me that PSEA's own "issues & action" tab on this exact subject has gone AWOL.