Those are the union rules. They have been negotiated over the years. Pay is based on degree level and years of experience-quality of work has no bearing.

The teachers have become skilled at playing the system they have designed.

In my perfect world, teachers would be compensated based on performance. Then the problem becomes how to evaluate performance when there are no hard-and-fast, easily quantifiable results to base performance on. Student test scores should be part of it, but not all students are the same-some students need a superlative job of teaching to perform at an "average" level, while some kids will test like "stars" even without a teacher.

Like many things, the more you look the deeper the problem gets. Sadly, there are no easy answers.