Because that’s the number of days teachers are required to work in Georgia and many other states. School is 180 days and then they have 2 weeks worth of teacher work days etc..
This has nothing to do with the south. Take the highest minimum wage in the country, Washington D.C., at $17 an hour.
The state with the lowest paid teachers pay more than that even assuming 12 hour days.
A masters degree isn’t required, you just start out making a few thousand a year more if you have one. Each year the gap grows though so that it becomes more and more worth it.
Also $62k a year is the starting salary for a teacher with no experience, but it’s only slightly lower than the median salary for anyone with a masters degree.
Also in many states teachers get defined benefit pensions and other benefits which are far better than what nearly anyone in the private sector gets. In Georgia, teachers can retire with their full pension after only 30 years. I know many teachers who retire in their early 50s. 10 years before nearly anyone else.
Teaching is a hard job and they probably are underpaid for the value the provide, but this misconception about teachers making below minimum wage and Jen accounting for hours worked is just wrong. Also I know a ton of teachers and most of them aren’t working more than 45-50 hours a week during the school year after their first year or 2.