I got news for you. Business and the gov are taking advantage of all of us in far worse ways. They manipulate the economy to keep overall compensation down among other things.
And noone is making anyone spend thier own money in this situation. The fact is the powers that be are willing to pay for a specific level of quality in education. The teachers want to raise that level. So they are willing to use thier own money to do so. I work in software, and it is similar. The business is willing to pay for a certain level of quality. It is never as high as the user or the employees want. So we often spend our own time (money) to make it better quality. No business or government is going to pay for a quality level such that employees won’t want to raise it more. That is just capitalism.
So the root of the problem is the disparity in desired quality for education.
We have been griping about teachers spending thier own money for longer than I have been alive. Almost nothing has been done. But imagine the gov just paid them all back. A few hundred a year per teacher on average. But what is really needed is many thousands per teacher per year.
The teachers unions around where I am are getting with the program. They told the district what they want, and they included that they want the state to pay for some of it. For too long unions have accepted agreements based on what the district can afford. But it really isn’t the teachers problem that the state underfunded the district. And it is working. Teachers have some leverage right now. It needs to be used before it goes away.
Truth in advertising laws. Make it illegal to lie, mislead, or deceive in advertising. And I mean criminal, like jail time for the CEO, or they can specify an executive that must sign off on all ads if they like. That person takes the fall. And who decides if an ad breaks the law. A jury, or something more streamlined but still made up of regular Americans who decide.