They should, but they aren't and this is the reality.

Capitalism sucks at valuing things that don't give immediate profit. Education is such a thing - it has extreme ROI... 20 years down the line. Which is too long a time and it gets valued less than small changes that will bring in a little bit of money next month.

How is capitalism the thing valuing teacher's salaries? If referring to the US and public education, aren't they a branch of the government?

And even ignoring that(for example, at private schools), the 'consumer' here is really the parent. The child isn't in a position to choose schools, so it's really about selling to the parent. I imagine it has to be hard to get a sense of any 20-year projected ROI if you can only indirectly measure teaching quality by what your child says and standardized test scores.

> How is capitalism the thing valuing teacher's salaries? If referring to the US and public education, aren't they a branch of the government?

The tax base that funds the schools depends on the whims of capitalism.

There's also a bit of a principal-agent problem. The people who make decisions about the educational system are state bureaucrats, teachers, and parents, in roughly that order. The one person who's most affected by it - the kid - has basically zero say in anything.

I suspect that education would be a much higher priority and teachers would be paid much more if children could vote.

If children could vote and direct funds then school would rapidly become a cross between a candy-store and a hotel Spa.