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Comment by analog31 | Hacker News Reader

Maybe we could use college teaching as a model. College teachers are for the most part non-unionized.

Disclosure: I was one of those teachers for a semester, many years ago.

Also, teacher pay is not as rigid as it seems. In my state, the good teachers advance by moving to better paying districts. Very few teachers stay in rural districts for more than a year or two.

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I thought the same thing regarding professors not being unionized. However, in top universities they are paid as much based on research (or outside offers based on research) as they are on teaching capability.

One thing that is truly bonkers about K12 education is that they can get tenure in just a few years. This is much faster (and easier) than a professor getting tenure. But they both result in the near-inability to be fired.

The majority of teaching is done by "adjuncts" who are not professors, are ineligible for tenure, and don't do research. They have to re-apply for their job every semester. People rarely do it long-term, though it sometimes employs academic spouses and people who are using it for health benefits while pursuing a side business. It's certainly not a career.

My mom was a public high school teacher. When I described the conditions of working as an adjunct, her knee jerk reaction was: "That's why teachers have a union."

That’s funny, at least in my neck of the woods a lot of teachers prefer the rural jobs.

I’m not sure if the pay increase of moving the city balances out anyways with the increase in housing costs.

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