Incidentally, my wife is a chemist with a Masters degree. She doesn't make $34 an hour.
I actually agree with you that secondary public school teachers (where I live) make more than they should when other similarly educated professionals make less--and pay their salaries as tax payers. That's not true everywhere, though. But I get really angry on these threads because of all the assumptions that teachers are stupid and do little work. It's just not true. That might apply to a few, but not most.
My wife is a chemist as well, with two Master's. One in Chemistry, and one in Chemical Education. She's starting a Doctorate in a few years to be able to teach Chem Education at the University level.
With her two Masters, she was offered a job at one of the local Chem/Pharm companies (Boehringer Ingelheim), where she'd be making more than twice what she's making now. However, teaching is important to her. She knew the benefits and pitfalls, and chose the teaching career.