Your reasoning about why private teachers make less is completely wrong, im afraid.<p>First, realize that if teachers were not unionized, their salaries would without a doubt go down. Unions function very similar to monopolies in that regard.<p>So just intuitively we would expect in a freeer market that teachers salaries would go down. That said, even in the private sector teachers are still unionized --its hardly a free market -- so why haven&#x27;t private teachers been able to negotiate as high of a pay as public sector teachers?<p>&gt; why do private school teachers get paid less?<p>Because public sector unions have much more negotiating power. It&#x27;s really that simple.<p>Unions don&#x27;t have infinite power, the can only negotiate as much as the &#x27;pot&#x27; allows. In the public sector, the pot size is all tax revenue. There are almost no limits on how much public sector teachers can ask for.<p>This is exactly why FDR opposed public sector unions.<p>In the private sector, schools have to deal with remaining solvent. Teachers can only ask for at most -- the whole pot of revenue. And that pot is smaller in the private sector. The national average private school tuition is approximately $9,518 in 2015. Way less than the public sector at $12,922 per pupil in 2008.<p>As such, private sector teachers cannot demand as high wages as the public sector teachers can.