Teachers in Chicago really make 85k? Or are those high end estimates for administrators or masters degrees teachers with 25 years experience?
If so, I wish my mom, the teacher, lived in Chicago when I was growing up. Starting teacher's salary in my hometown is about 20k. They pay out of their own pockets for classroom supplies because the money they get from the district doesn't cover what they need, it's not no student loans but obviously fewer than a doc, she works 9 months of the year as a teacher (putting in way more than 40 hours a week, because most of her 40 hours is teaching and doesn't include prep time, meeting time, and doing individual lesson plans as a special ed. teacher, along with grading assignments and other paperwork) and like most of her fellow teachers had summer side jobs to boost her income on the "off" months. 85k might be the norm in bigger cities but not for the vast majority of the rest of the teacher workforce.
The general public sees just a small amount of what really goes on for teachers and docs and both groups are pretty under appreciated.