In a special report last week, The Chronicle revealed that when it comes to average teacher pay, San Francisco’s public schools rank No. 528 out of 821 California school districts. Even far less-expensive cities — including Modesto, Antioch and Newark — pay their teachers more.

But there is one way San Francisco schoolteachers could get a quick raise — quit and work instead for the city and county of San Francisco in just about any position. Cut hair, bake pastries, lay bricks or wash windows — and they’d start at a higher salary and earn bigger raises far more quickly.

After a bit of a pay boost for the 2016-17 school year, a new teacher in San Francisco with a bachelor’s degree and a credential will earn $52,657. The most any teacher will earn is $91,882 after 26 years of service.

By comparison, a city baker — often employed at a hospital — starts at $58,994 and hits $71,708 after four years. Barbers, also found at hospitals, start at $55,926 and earn $67,964 after four years. (That new teacher will be making $55,455 after four years.)

A city bricklayer starts at $80,262 and hits $97,552 after four years. A morgue attendant — the job involves preparing bodies for examination, putting them in refrigerators and cleaning the autopsy room — starts at $62,582 and hits $76,076 after four years.

Yes, that’s right. In San Francisco, preparing dead bodies pays better than educating live ones.

‘It’s a travesty’

Executive secretaries, gardeners, tree pruners, cable splicers, locksmiths, painters and parking meter repairmen — to name just a few — earn higher starting salaries than teachers in San Francisco and climb the salary ladder more quickly. Window cleaners, for example, start at $64,428 and hit $78,312 in four years.

“I think that’s a travesty,” said John Affeldt, managing attorney for Public Advocates, a law firm in San Francisco that is suing the state over poor education funding.

“We need people to wash the windows, but we ought to be paying our teachers a professional wage that reflects the critical role they play in the health and welfare of our state,” he said. “We’re not doing that.”

We asked Supervisor Mark Farrell, chairman of the budget committee, whether those pay discrepancies seem fair. The fact that his eyes nearly popped out of his head when we told him washing windows pays better than teaching gave us an indication of his answer.

“Not at all,” he said. “But I also believe this is a national issue, that teachers should be prioritized and not forgotten in terms of their income.”

By the way, we don’t mean to pick on the lower-paid city employees who perform much-needed work and should make enough to afford to live in this pricey city.

It’s more a question of why teachers don’t, especially because they’re required to graduate from college and earn a teaching credential, often shouldering them with big student loans. As last week’s special report noted, teachers are increasingly forced to take second jobs, rent dining rooms or living rooms in other people’s flats, or commute very long distances just to make it here.

Also, we know from your emails that many of you don’t think the city’s higher earners are exactly worth every penny — and they make lots of pennies. At $113,851, supervisors make more than twice a starting teacher’s salary. The mayor’s salary — $293,023 — could pay for five starting teachers and still have lots left over for pencils, paper and books.

Even people working the same jobs in the city and the school district earn different pay. In a strange quirk, the two government entities share a civil service system for certain positions, including clerical jobs and computer maintenance. The people who happen to get one of those jobs in the city make about 10 percent more than those in the school district.

Different budgets

Why the big discrepancy?

It’s simple. They’re two completely different budgets.

The city, with its booming tech and tourism sectors, is raking it in. Driven by high property, business and hotel taxes, its current budget is $9 billion — more than at least 10 states, including Iowa and Maine. It employs more than 30,000 people, whose salaries and benefits consume more than half the total budget.

The San Francisco Unified School District is not exactly raking it in. It has a $787 million budget, which is dictated purely by the state. The per-pupil allocation is the same for children in San Francisco and Bakersfield, regardless of the fact that everything here costs more. The amount spent per child in California used to be among the top in the nation, but after Prop. 13 passed in 1978, it plummeted.

“We’re scraping the barrel between 44th and 46th nationally in per-pupil spending,” Affeldt said.

San Francisco has prioritized keeping class sizes small over boosting teacher pay and now has to fill the positions of 368 teachers, about 11 percent of the workforce, who resigned instead of returning next year. That’s in addition to retirements. That’s the highest resignation tally in a decade, fueled largely by the cost of living and housing in particular.

So what can the school district and the city do about it?

Matt Haney, president of the school board, said the board has just started discussing placing a parcel tax before voters as soon as November to boost teacher pay. A similar tax passed in 2008, and this would be in addition.

“This is a crisis. It’s not going away,” Haney said. “If attracting and keeping the best teachers is a priority for San Franciscans, we will need them to step up and help cover the cost.”

Haney certainly wouldn’t object to City Hall sending more money to the school district than it already does. In 2014, voters approved a charter amendment to require the city pay the district for sports, libraries, arts, music, universal preschool and general education purposes. Between that and some additional city funding, City Hall gives the public schools roughly $100 million a year.

“What we pay teachers is shameful,” Haney said. “It’s unsustainable, and we welcome partners from the city and from the private sector to join us to help address this crisis.”

Don’t shed tears for everybody in the school district, however. Superintendent Richard Carranza is bucking the trend by making $310,000— $17,000 more than Mayor Ed Lee.

Heather Knight is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer who covers City Hall politics. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: hknightsf

Special report

The Chronicle’s special report on teacher pay in San Francisco may be found at http://projects.sfchronicle.com/2016/teacher-pay.