Teachers deserve raises
Regarding “Editorial: School choice? Give teachers a raise, not a punch in the gut,” (Feb. 6): Thank you for your support for giving educators a raise. I just want to scream when I hear irresponsible, misinformed talking heads ask why teachers complain about what they are paid to work a 9-3 job where they get off every summer. They are clueless. What with lesson plans, other preparation and grading, my wife, who teaches physics and chemistry, works 10 hours a day and part of nearly every weekend in addition to buying her own classroom supplies. And that summer vacation gets shorter and shorter every year. We can’t even plan to do something for our Aug. 14 anniversary anymore because for the last three to four years the new school year has already started before that.
Taking the actual hours my wife works into account, with her annual salary, she earns under $3 per hour. She did better as a cocktail waitress. She sometimes had to deal with unruly club patrons, but that was a cakewalk compared to the disciplinary issues in school. So heck yes, when it comes to using some of our current state surplus to give teachers a $15,000 raise, they do indeed deserve “at least that much,” as you say.
I’ve always loved this quote by Lee Iacocca: “In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have.” If only teachers were paid like that is true. David Kelly, Spring
Your thesis ignores the fact that the surplus was due, in large part, to an irregular and unusual bump in oil and natural gas prices, whereas increases in wages and other entitlements are recurring expenses that never decline. Not to deny the need for increases in pay to teachers, as well as public safety employees, but any increase of that type should be based on what is sustainable from recurring state revenues. Far better that the surplus be primarily dedicated to a rainy day fund and one-time infrastructure expenditures. R. Herlin, Asheville, N.C.