I'm amazed by the sibling comments "benefit of the doubt" view even with the hindsight of the game industry, among others, that uses this fact systematically. There's obviously skewed incentives to over-scope when the crunches are culturally normalized together with costs offloaded to the employees since there's no OT pay. The incentives to the individual manager is obvious too. No costs to report for their own incompetence, instead their feature list is completed - and maybe their bonus or promotion goal reached.

Where I live this no overtime pay scheme is usually compensated by an extra vacation week per year. Like clockwork however - every single year - this credit is collected through overtime multiple times over.

This will be repeated as long as they can get away with it because there's simply so much money to make from it.

My boss doesn’t have any direct financial stake in the outcome of our/my work. And yet - my workload and occupational expectations are such that I’m routinely in a position requiring significant overtime. I’m also aware that this is often true in other public school districts, less true in private schools, and even worse in many charter school networks.

Teaching is an emotionally exhausting job; however, it’s the combination of intensity + working hours + low compensation that pushes me toward industry (anyone looking for a UX Research Assistant in the Minneapolis area?)

Maybe because you are a nice guy? I hope I'll never have a boss with your ethics, I'd be gone very fast.

I am merely pointing out that unpaid overtime/wage theft/whatever is probably more common than the OP acknowledges. This is obviously unfortunate and a likely a work culture problem in the US.