Colorado teachers march for higher pay, funding
Re: “With teacher out this week, I ran some numbers,” April 29 column; “Colorado school teachers chant ‘Stand up and fight!” April 27 news story
I find myself stunned to be actually writing that Mr. Caldara may have brought up a good point when comparing teacher salaries to other professions. He noted teachers work 36 weeks a year compared to the 50 weeks of other workers. I propose we take Mr. Caldara’s thought and make the school year 46 weeks. Of course you would need to pay the teachers their per diem rate. For a starting teacher, that would increase their pay on an average of $10,000 per diem. With the increase of a school year, more lunches would need to be served more buses run. Custodial staff would need to be added to address maintenance issues: summers could not be used to ‘reboot’ facilities and there would be sizeable increases in utilities.
Of course that would take more funding for public education. Oh, wait! That’s right! That’s the reason the teachers marched last week. Gary Johnson, Greeley
My mother became a public school teacher at age 19 in Missouri. After teaching most of the time, the Phi Beta Kappa graduate of CU retired in California at age 60. After she died in 1979 we went through her papers and found that her pay for her final year of teaching was $2800. In her later years teaching was not about money but about her life-long passion for educating children. By then my stepfather had a steady income, something most present day teachers do not have to rely on. She would be greatly pleased to know that her great granddaughter has a master’s degree in education and is a public school teacher in Thornton. Married to another Thornton public school teacher, she is expecting their second child in July. They are typical of underpaid Colorado public school teachers who need and deserve higher pay.
Dick Sugg, Golden
It is an utter disgrace that Colorado teachers are forced to strike for a living salary. The strike in Colorado Springs in 1977 was necessary so teachers could feed their own children. It also brought forth the much-dreaded unions to that ultra-conservative town. Even Texas pays their teachers better than Colorado. Why do teachers continue to be more poorly paid than any other profession requiring a college degree? No, teachers don’t teach to get rich in monetary terms. They teach because they see the value of an educated public. Why don’t the voters see that?
Vernon Turner, Denver