A few weeks ago, I spent an hour or two reading our school budget (Fairfax County, Virginia). It's on line at
http://www.fcps.edu/DFnS/OBS/Approved03/Approved03.pdf The teacher salary table ranges from a low of $34,750 / year (1st year teacher, 193 days/year schedule) to $85,542 / year (20+ years).
In addition, advanced education earns a supplement to the pay check, ranging from $1,285/year for 15 credits towards Masters, up to $9,277/year for PhD.
And, there are additional salary supplements for various extra duties, such as Yearbook Advisor ($3,568) down to $1,256 for being the Junior Class advisor.
The foregoing are teacher salaries, not for those in a supervisory position.
It's not difficult to reach close to $100,000 / year for a Fairfax County teacher with a PhD and long employment plus one "add on" responsibility.
In my view (under graduate degree in Electrical Engineering, a year of EE graduate work, 3 years in Law School) Fairfax County is more than generous, particularly considering, as Walter Williams often points out, students in the College of Education at almost any university have the lowest college board entrance exam scores.
And, as far as "free" work after hours goes, Until I retired a couple years ago, the only job I ever worked at where I didn't consistently work far more than 40 hours/week, was a 4 year stint at the Federal Government. In the private sector, once you are outside the hourly wage category, you work enough hours to get the job done.
Incidently, our local property taxes in Fairfax County have increased 15% to 18% a year for the last 4 years, the vast majority of which revenue goes to fund the school system. However, the Superintendent of Schools has been interviewed in the local paper complaining that the taxpayers of the county were not adequately funding the school system. We now pay more in county property taxes than the entire mortgage, taxes and insurance costs were for the first house we had in the County.
Jack
To reach the high levels on the salary schedule, it takes you decades of teaching. It takes years just to bump up a decent amount.
And if you leave a district, you are back at where you started....they put you on the bottom pay rung at that district. You can't move unless you want to take a pay cut.
Out here in flyover country, starting salaries are in the low 20,000's.
Salaries are higher out east due to increased union power in some cases, but also just due to increased cost of living.