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40 hour work week divided by 35 week school year = 1400 hours worked yearly

That's funny. For starters, it's a 180 day school year. That's 36 weeks. There are an additional ten days on all contracts. So, that's 38 weeks. Also, teachers rarely work just 40 hours. Try a minimum of 50 hours a week. That's coming early for either morning duty or just to prepare, and staying late for either afternoon duty or to get work done, and prepare for the next day. Now add an additional ten hours per week for work done at home on their own time without pay, and you've got about 60 hours per week. So at 60 hours per week x 38 weeks you're looking at 2280 hours annually.

As of the latest survey in 2004, the national average was 46,752; not 58,000. So, 46,752 divided by 2280 is $20.51 per hour. This is for a job that requires a four year degree for entry level salary, and other specialized degrees requiring up to an additional four years of school and many years of service to get the higher pay with which this average is calculated, and many hours of professional training to maintain certification. We haven't even begun to discuss the money teachers spend out of their own pockets for shortages in supplies that are necessary and must be bought regardless of whether or not the system reimburses the teacher. So your quote about $58,000 being a conservative estimate is not really true.

Yes, we should be good stewards of our tax dollars. Yes, police, firefighters, and the military also deserve to be compensated fairly for their contributions to society. However, I detect an anti-teacher tone in your post which has resulted in a distorted view of what is really going on.

I appreciate that some teachers do in fact work hard. But the rest of the world works 60+ hour weeks fairly regularly and we don't get the benefit of a 14 week vacation each year (and most of us don't get all of school holidays or teacher in-service days either). Generally, we're also held to measurable standards of accountability (except of course for those years I worked for the state education agency). The market rightly understands these factors and that is why teacher salaries are what they are. I don't mean to denigrate teachers or to say that their job is easy. I'm just saying that teaching is a lot easier than many, many other jobs. Teachers don't realize how silly they look when they get huffy and indignant about how hard they work, as if to say that the rest of us "dump" our kids at school and go skipping off to play. During one three year period I worked 90+ hours a week culminating in one 121 hour week (that doesn't include the commute time). For the rest of my career, a 50-60 hour week (before the commute) is commonplace, and (not to put too fine a point on it) I don't get a 14 week vacation afterwards).