Plus after growing up and living in a red state (NC, mostly purple but gerrymandering dropped a can of red paint over the state), I’d also add that very, very few of my classmates were even considering getting a job in education, and if they were, they were going into it knowing they were not going to get rich. I went to a decent high school after my freshman year, but yeah, working at a poor/rural school is kinda risky and often not worth the effort. One of my aunts works at the local somewhat rural/poor high school, and today I heard her make an offhand remark about how when she retires, she will have to get a supplemental job.

The issues with education mostly boil down to how the current field is pretty much scorched unless a decent amount of money is involved. I went to a middle college after my freshman year, and I know a lot of those teachers were paid pretty decently for the area. That is mostly because our scores majorly boosted the avg for the county, so some better funding and support was provided. Even then, I remember hearing about the work/life balance of grading student work and kind of accepted that it wasn’t for me.