Investment bankers barely enjoy their jobs and take a lot of abuse from their bosses, yet there is no shortage of banker aspirants. Some even stay for the long haul, or go to even worse working conditions such as private equity, for more money.

Investment bankers also have autonomy and generally work in small teams. Not responsible for human beings, just capital. Also if a IB gets fired (but is good) they are probably employed within a week. A good teacher that gets fired (for fighting the bad administration? Good luck...

To draw parallels, an investment banker who goes against the system would likewise not be hired, but rather virtually blackballed. And good luck for whistle blowers in any financial institution.

Also investment bankers have as much autonomy as a client allows them to. And MDs and VPs are as much responsible for their subordinates and client relationships (although not in the same way as teachers are for students).

Yet public school teachers do this all the time. They take low pay and a bad work environment, and keep teaching anyway. Why? Because they are passionate about teaching.

I had several high-school teachers who weren't financially comfortable, yet still chose to spend hundreds or even thousands on their students during a school year.

Of course, those teachers would have been much more effective if they were in a financially stable position. I also would have had fewer quality teachers leave.

If your salary is high enough that you can save some money then you aren’t required to put up with bullshit in order to keep eating food.

Do you mean that by saving money people can leave the profession sooner or at least move to a school with more favorable working conditions?

If so, maybe you’ve hit on a kernel of truth: we can’t risk paying teachers enough that they’d have the financial security to leave a bad work situation.

Am I the only one who thinks “we should pay teachers more so they can afford a new profession because public education is horrible” is the wrong takeaway? Like, why not fix public education (e.g., more teacher autonomy) or at least support some voucher program so more teachers can be private school teachers?

See my reply above. I didn’t think this idea would be controversial. Working conditions should improve when the workers have other options.

"Working conditions should improve when the workers have other options."

So when the workers have not other options, working conditions can stay low?

It’s not a “should” it’s just what happens.

I mean that teachers would have a credible threat of leaving and hopefully administrations and school boards would respond to the threat by improving conditions.

High salaries means more people looking to get in, so it's not like administrators would risk running out of teachers.

(I'm all for financially rewarding good teachers, but because their work is incredibly valuable. It's just ab incredibly hard context in which to separate the good and the bad without creating perverse incentives)