Comparing US to UK raw salaries introduces a lot of other variables. State employees in the US have traditionally accepted lower salaries than other similarly skilled workers in the US in exchange for benefits.

Workers who switch from teaching jobs to non-teaching jobs see their salaries typically go down. https://www.heritage.org/education/report/assessing-the-comp....

Teachers only look relatively underpaid if you lump all college graduates together and look at average salaries. That number is heavily skewed, because many of our executives and professionals (bankers, doctors, lawyers, programmers) are paid multiples more than in Europe. That just means those people are paid too much, not that teachers are paid too little.

> Workers who switch from teaching jobs to non-teaching jobs see their salaries typically go down.

That's hardly shocking. My salary would go down if I switched from programming (which I've been doing for decades) to something else, too.