I have many teacher friends, but two of them are polar opposites. They have the option of 44 or 52 pay checks. Although the annual sum is still the same. (Fake names to protect the innocents) Joe takes 44 larger checks and bitches all summer that he has to get a second job yo make ends meet and is miserable every time we have a budget vote he says that teachers pay is too low. He says he is taking his pension after 20 years and quitting. He just taught his 11th year. When he retires in his 40s HS will collect a 50% psnsion for (statistically) 33 more years. He will have been paid for 53 years for teaching 20 years. Now Kat on the other hand gets 52 checks and travels all summer with her (also a teacher) husband and two children. She loves the freedom afforded her by her job,she loves being able to be a positive role model for all of her students and she cannot understand why so many other teachers complain about earning more than the mean salary (way above in our area) for working 10 m
Also it's relative to the amount of training you have to do, most similarly trained and educated professionals get paid higher than teachers, even when holidays are taken into account
Search Wyoming and Erie county on this one. http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/01/nys_teachers_salaries_by_school_district_who_makes_the_most_money.html?appSession=16038388667935600857613057786426285007077766546307749047258401440914784292398717921019086767087609828943443325596586793433443618 Average Buffalo workers. http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2012/05/21/buffalo-130th-in-us-for-average-salary.html