A teacher friend of mine once told me that low pay for teachers is a result of historic sexism. For much of American history, teaching was considered women's work, and teacher salaries were kept low on the theory that they supplemented the main family income, the one earned by a man.

We see the same thing kinds of low pay situations in some other fields traditionally staffed by women even after something like gender equity sets in.

It's way past time we broke out of that paradigm.