"Strange, my wife is a teacher (junior high special education), and she works 10 hours a day, for 9 months a year (approximately 40 weeks). That comes to 2000 hours a year. She makes about $19.00 an hour (rounding UP). "
Your figures are much more accurate. I often put in 16 hour days myself.
But then, it's not the money that I do it for, it's those 20 bright shiny faces I get to see each day. They're doing pretty well this year. Even the lowest of my first graders can write out compositions, know the different sentence endings, know what proper nouns are and how to distinguish them in a sentence, the difference betweeen to/too/two, and so on. They're about 70% accurate with nouns, verbs, and adjectives so we'll get there. :)
My numbers are accurate for my wife and the 3A school district she works at. From what I know, the hours she works are about the same as any school district (old friends wife was a 1st grade teacher in a 5A, worked about the same amount of hours).
The shame of it all? They are paid princely sums compared to the janitorial staff that has to clean up after the 'kids', who often work as much or more, than the teachers.