Well, yeah. The pay for teachers is still artificially depressed by the pink-collar, anti-feminist ideas that "well, they'll have their husband's salary," and "they tend to quit or take time off once they have a few kids, though, so you can't count on them," that it's really hard to get many men into the profession. And that's even before one considers the pedophile-paranoia and the microscope gentleman teachers live under. Teachers just work a really hard job for really crummy pay already, and while for women, you get this lovely sisterhood of fellow ladies who support one another and make a hard job easier and all-girls-together, for gentlemen? Yeah, not so bloody much!
I mean, really. An education degree, you could go and work in a public school, be a positive male role model, model positive masculinity, deconstruct the whole 'toxic masculinity' thing and help young men build themselves up while also showing young women what a good man looks like, for about $43K a year plus benefits. Your vacations will be spent doing lesson planning, professional development (at least three graduate-level courses every five years, minimum,) and fitting in every medical, social and financial appointment the work schedule and the shortage of $15K/year subs doesn't let you do during the schoolyear. You will work from about 8 am to about 3 in the classroom, and until about 8pm on grading and planning. More if you sponsor a club or coach a sport, and you will be voluntold to do at least one of those. Dress code is formal to business casual. Jeans are only allowed on Fridays if you donate a dollar to the disease-of-the-week jar or get a 'jeans pass' for covering someone else's class while they use the john. If nobody else on your floor loves jeans, try not to hydrate too much.
Or you could become the trainer at a call center. You work from 8-4, your job ends when your shift does, you train adults to do an adult job, and you make $65K plus benefits starting. You start with four times the vacation time that the public school teacher does, and your workplace has a full-casual dress code. Bathroom breaks are mandated by Federal law.
Yeah.
Generally speaking, when we have gentleman teachers, they're either ardent, true believers who speak in glowing words of electric praise for the teachers and coaches who changed their lives, or they are teachers who are married to lady teachers. The administration is all hesitant, though, all "They tend to take a lot of time off or quit after they have a few kids, though, so can't count on 'em..." only this time, it's the men they expect will bunk off for the call centers, the corporate offices and similar as soon as their significant other at the other school gets back from parental leave. It's rare and special to find career teacher pairs, and those that we have, the kids adore. Sometimes, they're the only happily married people some kids know personally.
The good news is, it's getting better. The ladies at my school decided we were sick of never having anyone our boys looked up to, so we organized some men's teaching events for the men, like, booked the room, sent out the email invites with the automated blast to the right people, and left the food out for them. That seems to have helped. They meet and talk, they can back one another up, and they're friends now. We're getting some more gentlemen soon, there's an analogue to our ladies' social and emotional support after-school club where our young men and a few of our gentlemen colleagues discuss manly skills, work on masculine emotional coping and from what I've seen making their handout copies, that blog 'The Art of Manliness' is a lot of their source material. It's getting better. Our Gay-Straight Alliance kids have also set up a cute little Gender Mediation thing where girls and boys with disputes can come to a little panel of, basically, some of everything, share both sides, and the rainbow council helps them find common ground and a resolution that satisfies both. The one guidance counselor thought it up.
Oh, and also there is a secret dudes' slingshot paintball league we officially disclaim all knowledge of but everyone knows about. Lets them burn off their aggression and reading about tactics makes for nice, quiet SSR.
It is getting better. But we do need more people. Gentlemen especially. A raise would be nice, but nobody in this job does it for the money. There isn't a blessed thing money can buy that feels as good as a student bringing you proof of their triumphant success, showing it off proudly, and thanking you for your help. It doesn't even matter with what. Those happy smiles, that pride in their faces, that look of confidence?
Yeah. No district could match that pay.