As a teacher, I can confirm that it can be a very difficult job at times - depending on the classes that you get. Getting 25 - 30 fifteen year olds to not only behave in a reasonable manner but actually learn something they hate for 75 minutes on top of it is a challenge.
In terms of hours worked per year it is not as much as virtually every other profession however, so it's tough to argue that fact.
In terms of salary, I would say that the current compensation is fair. I don't think that I am hard done by at all, but I don't think teachers are overpaid for their education and value added to society.
I've seen the justification of salary like so: (Math is simplified - it's just a fun example)
I actually teach students (not extra supervision) for an average of 4 hours per day. I have on average 25 students in each class. Therefore I am responsible for 100 student hours per day. That would be 500 student hours per week worked. I work for 39 weeks per year, which works out to 19500 student hours per year.
A completely untrained babysitter makes what... 5$ per hour per kid? So for the babysitting services I provide, I should theoretically charge $97500 per year, simply to babysit these kids. Given that even the highest paid teacher makes less than that, I'm throwing in the teaching of math and physics for free.
Sounds like a pretty good deal to me
