Here's the missing link -- the outsourcing is performed through agencies like this one. The agency fee (around $12K) is paid by the prospective employee, not the employer. The reason is that foreign nationals from third world countries covet the H1-B visa. In the meantime, the employer has effectively outsourced the HR function as well, at no cost for services. Incidentally, the congressional H1-B visa cap is waived for public school employees.

In turn, the public school systems do not need to raise salaries to fill shortages. In my area (DC metro) the starting salary is in the mid-40s. An additional agency function is to set up these (mostly) married women in shared apartment situations, much like college dorms. If they bring their families (permitted under H1-B visa), the spouse is not able to work.

You just insulted the millions of teachers, who work their arses off, for a lot less money than you mention, never miss a day, and put in hours and hours and hours and days and days and days beyond what is on our calendar.  

Please, do not disparage an entire profession and our union (because that is what NEA is) because you have a neighbor than is cheating jerk.  
After 40 years of teaching (two masters degrees which I paid for our of my own pocket), I am not making 90% of my salary; I am not old enough for Medicare so I am paying for my own health care and I substitute to make ends meet.

When you give a statement like yours, you show the resentment built up toward educators by the right wing. You are painting us all with ONE brush.  Cable news sensationalizes a few crazies in the profession who account for a miniscule percentage.

 - Because teachers like your neighbor, who takes off every available day, make extra work for other teachers, who do not.  

 - Because teachers like your neighbor, who abuse the system, make it harder for other teachers, who do not.

 - Because unenthusiastic, uninspired teachers like your neighbor create an atmosphere that chokes the enthusiastic, inspired teachers.  The 'can't do' attitude of that school board is also lethal.

 - Because apathetic teachers like your neighbor send their uninspired, unenthusiastic students into the next classroom, where that teacher now has to work twice as hard to undo what just happened the period before theirs.

Can you get rid of a bad teacher?  You absolutely can.  Unions don't prevent schools from getting rid of bad teachers - in fact, any union worth its membership wants that person out of the classroom.  Can you get rid of a bad school board?  You absolutely can.  Graft, apathy, lack of direction, ill-served students? Vote them all out!

I spent four decades in public education as a teacher.  I could have gone into administration (where one can make a better salary) but in my heart, I am a teacher.......and working with kids is what I loved.  Administrators end up being the disciplinarians, or doing nothing but paper work.  
Sadly, now teachers have become overwhelmed with paperwork....much of it useless.

And yes, a lot of it is "cover your ass" paperwork.  DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT.  An 8th grader in middle school calls you a "f*cking b*tch" because you kept his 6th grade sibling after school to write a note about the child not doing any homework....and to talk to him.  You report it to the admin and the discipline: the child has to write and apology.  
You are told all and any threats by children are to be reported.  When you do, nothing happens.  

In elementary school, thanks to George W, if you have chose to work in a poor performing school (usually these are schools in poor neighborhoods), you are constantly threatened with "this school will close if the scores don't go up).  What happens?  CHEATING....by teachers, administrators....
what needs to be done?  INCENTIVES....NOT MERIT PAY.  GIVE signing bonuses to teachers willing to commit to five years to one school...research shows that personal relationships and TRUST are a HUGE factor in schools in poor communities. Make it competitive for the best teachers to want to teach in poor schools.  

One school in which I am substituting, regularly scores an average of the 90%ile in the state tests for NCLB.  The parents of these kids are mostly college educated, doctors, lawyers, college professors etc. The free lunch is under 5%.  The school from which I retired is the same size but with an 80% free lunch population, and the scores are at the bottom of the district.  The turn over of teachers and students of the first school is minimal; in the latter school, unbelievable turn over.  In the poor school don't dare talk about things like poor attendance, or kids not ready to learn because one parent is in jail and the child is switching schools quite often.  EXCUSES they yell at the teachers.  In the minds of the NCLB mentality, if the teachers use the RIGHT researched materials, researched and created by text book publishers (who just happen to be friends with the Bush family) and work hard enough ALL the children will learn at the same rate and in the same way.
No one with a brain cell believes that.  Kids are not widgets.  Kids come to school with issues, some so overwhelming I challenge any adult to deal with their problems and funtion even half normally.

There are no magic potions for teaching.  The closest is "parents are supportive and value education."  There is no set way for kids to learn, develop and grown.  Do any of us expect are kids (even siblings) to run at the same speed, grow at the same rate, do art at the same level, compete in sports at the same level?  NO!
So why do people think if we teach this way at age  x all children will then learn to read and will succeed?  

I have had years when one lesson was a huge success and tried the same thing with another class and not so much a success.  WHY?  Kids are not widgets.....they are humans.

For me, teaching is more of an art than a science.  Great teachers are intuitive about their students.... and have an ability to tell you which student is doing what, in each subject.  We are wasting time and money over testing .....because good teachers could tell you all the info you get from a child on that test without doing the test.

But GOOD teachers are being burned out, potentially GREAT teachers are quitting because of burn out, money and the constant barrage of useless paperwork, repetitive inservices and constantly pushing of curriculum that is driven by text book publishers instead of by educators.

Many teachers and nurses begin at salaries that are ridiculously low.

Additonally, I have no problem with immigrants doing any job if they do it well, but it does become hard when language barriers come in.  My son's teacher this year is filipino, has been teaching here for twenty years, and we still have trouble decipering what she is saying sometimes.  That's just reality, and it makes it difficult for children and parents to simply and effectively communicate with the teacher when the teacher has a language barrier.  You can be fluent in English an still have great trouble speaking in a manner that is understandable easily.  And if being able to clearly comprehend every word your teacher is saying is not important, well, okay then, just say it's about saving money and shut up.

The fact is teaching should be a profession as well respected and well paid as any in our society, it is certainly as important as any.  But, sadly, we do not believe that.  We believe it should simply be a profession where we pay just enough money to keep just enough decent teachers from quitting, and we're not even doing a good job of that.

And in these days of faked credentials, there is a lot of checking for HR folks to do.  My state now requires criminal background checks for all potential employees, too -- and that's all potential employees, so more than the number of hires.  And when they're from out of state and several states, it's a lot of work just for that step on the checklist.

There's also lots of startup paperwork to do, lots of training to do, etc., these days and more at the good employers, who know it's worth it to keep good employees rather than start all over again through an increasingly complicated process.  Just the steps in setting up benefits for those employees who get them -- well, have you had the fun of dealing with insurance companies lately?:-)

So when people talk to me about how easy teachers have it, what with the 7-2 day, and the summers off, I howl with laughter.  As an English teacher, I never had a day that ended at 2, I had hours of classwork every night and weekend, and I taught every single summer I was in the profession.