Yes, she is willing to work at this salary. But we look at is as a donation to society and to our city. If we have to look at her decision to be a teacher as a donation -- she is not payed enough!
It's a market because she has a choice.
> But we look at is as a donation to society and to our city.
Fair enough, but that doesn't imply that you're owed more.
If she's unhappy with her "donantion", she's free to not make it.
> If we have to look at her decision to be a teacher as a donation -- she is not payed enough!
News flash - almost everyone thinks that s\he is underpaid.
If you don't like the consequences of your choice, make a different one.
Education as an industry is broken in many other ways that make it fail as a market. But in the scope of our discussion, she has chosen freely to accept the offer; the school has chosen freely to extend that offer to her. That's all that's necessary to prove my point.
Yes, she is willing to work at this salary. But we look at is as a donation to society and to our city.
I intentionally worded my reply so as not to limit my reference to her salary. I said her compensation, or her benefits. This includes the satisfaction that she gets from making "a donation to society and to our city". If that makes her feel good, then it's absolutely part of her compensation, part of the package deal that makes her accept the employment contract.
You can't say that you want a salary that in a vacuum matches the most mundane or unpleasant job, and then reap the additional job satisfaction yourself.
Think of it this way: would you take a job as an astronaut, getting paid nothing but room and board to do it? I, and I expect many other people, probably would. And we'd feel mighty lucky to have had that chance. Considering the satisfaction we got from actually going into space, the entirety of our compensation was enormous.
(Really, I'm not just babbling. This is how economics works. Those people who think that economists are only thinking about money couldn't be any farther from the truth. Economics is the study of why people make decisions, why they choose one alternative above another.)