TODAY’S TALMUD VERSE

The best conduct a man can adopt is that which gains him the esteem of others without depriving him of his own.

The Talmud

Top teachers needed to produce top-flight students

If our country is to keep up with the rest of the world we are going to have to turn out top-flight students year after year for the rest of our time. Think about it: India has a population of 1,236,344,631 (July 2014 est.). India’s population has exceeded that of the entire continent of Africa by 200 million people. India produces more honor students than America can produce students with its population: 318,892,103 (July 2014 est.). The second highest income group in America today is Asian and Pacific Islanders.

America cannot afford to “shortchange” the education of any of its citizens. I am 79 years old. When I was a teenager, black teachers and postal workers were the best educated people in my neighborhood. Segregation limited job opportunities for educated blacks to those two professions. As a consequence, the black schools that I attended like Klondike, Grant and Manassas had a profusion of highly trained and talented black teachers. During my days in high school, Manassas sent more students to college than Email letters to letters@commercial appeal.com; mail Letters to the Editor, The Commercial Appeal, 495 Union, Memphis, TN 38103; or click on the “Submit Letter” link on the Opinion page atcommercialappeal.com. any other black or white Memphis city school.

If you are going to produce worldclass engineers, you need world-class engineers teaching your students. You cannot expect a highly trained engineer to leave the corporate world, take a pay cut and move into a classroom to teach. That seldom happens. Teaching school should be the best paid profession in America. In addition, schoolteachers should have more vacation time than any other profession. That vacation time should be spent on domestic and foreign travel. Teachers should bring their travel experiences back to the classroom and use those experiences to motivate their students to reach beyond their local circumstances. We can pay now or we can pay later, but we will pay.

Willie Green, Memphis