> Burnout is not exclusive to klei kodesh.
I may be too sensitive here. When someone is burnt out by being a merchant or a doctor, he can still work to provide parnosa to the family and, hopefully, does quality job selling or x-raying. If he is failing, there are systems in place – competition, management that will push him out. When you are learning or teaching (and I lumped in teaching as it is _sometimes_ a consequence of learning and not having other job prospects) – you are failing in Torah or in raising young neshomos. do we have modern mechanisms of quality control here? tests? transparency?
> Why is that shocking?
That a learnt couple of teachers can not get their own kid out of bad situation… other people are not in the position where they are tied to a school job (evek avdut?). The context was that the lady thanked me for taking my kid out – turns out that helped her to convince her husband to do the same (and she previously was a great teacher for my kids, btw)
> Do we have mechanisms to prevent workaholic husbands
yes, it is called a wife. A workaholic has a chance to work less. Someone without an occupation and with peer pressure has harder time to change his ways.
> How are they not doing it of their own free will?
They may have signed up out of free will, or out of community pressure. They may think it is time to change, but expectations are set and alternatives are scarce. Good tzedoka collectors are sensitive to the customers and try not to pressure people beyond what they really want to give … works well in a long term.