"Teachers make <25/hour with poor benefits (Florida, USA)."
Teacher pay varies greatly from area to area. Where I live in VA pay starts at $36/hour and goes up to $67 per hour. They also receive what would be considered by most to be excellent benefits. Over recent years my locality has been substancially increasing teacher pay each year especially on the upper end of the scale because the high end is actually behind nearby counties which we compete against for experienced teachers.
In Florida, a significant %, I'd estimate at least 10% of FL teachers, have come here from the North East to find a teaching job, because the job market is so competitive.
My early education was in the NE, and I had many distinguished teachers, and many were even from the south. Very few young teacher.
In FL, many young new teachers. Many from PA, NJ, and other competitive markets.
> pay varies greatly from area to area
In the SF Bay area, average SE comp is upwards of 200K, representing a small percent of the full market for software engineers...
I don't think the claim is that this is an untapped source of cheap labor. More that it's a (potential) source of inspiration, direction, contacts, knowledge. High school students have spent their entire lives inside the education system, taught by people who have also spent their entire lives inside the education system. They might benefit from perspectives on what's possible outside the wall, besides those they get from their parents.
Most students don't have well-educated parents, so I agree the exposure is important.
My point is that, if this is ever going to happen, there needs to be more money directed at education.
On a related note, I went to high school in a town where there were essentially zero white-collar professional jobs. Parents were working either on the manufacturing line, in a call center, at the Walmart, steak-n-shake or gas station. The nearest cities, Jacksonville and Orlando were both at least 90 minutes away.
Where do we find the retiring-professionals for these students?
There may be opportunities for more blue-collar variants. I'm trying to think where but there was some program to hire former soldiers as teachers, which is a bit like that.
If we 3X the minimum teacher pay, we'd attract a whole new class of highly effective teachers.
That would solve the aforementioned issue, because people will move to BFE for the money.
Specialized and advanced subjects can be taught easier and cheaper. Their students are capable of learning virtually, giving them access to the best teachers in a subject area, and at as fast a speed as they can go.
What Public schools need to focus on are the lowest common denominators, your arithmetic to liberal arts, so that students are prepared for a more-self-guided education in specialized/advanced subjects. I'd argue people with experience in industry wouldn't even be valuable at this level, as their experience no longer generally prepares the students for further education.
> some program to hire former soldiers as teachers
That would be the Prussians, the origin of the compulsory universal education system with obedience and conformity as its foundation. The indoctrination worked very well, no wonder the system consequently spread all over the world.
Edit: and schools don't even have money for paper/supplies.