As a local teacher, it is with some fear that I begin this journey. It seems as though the mysterious "they" are a very powerful and quiet (usually) part of our community. With this in mind, I want to offer my apologies far ahead of time for any sensitivity offended with my comments. It definitely is not intentional, and I do wish that all readers could understand that it is "OK" to accept the fact that there might be legitimate viewpoints different from theirs.

Teaching.....in our public schools. I love it, but how much do you really know about the financial end of it? Most of the people I talk to think we are quite well paid, and are reluctant to offer up any more tax money for teacher salaries. I can understand, when our tax burdens are so high. Georgia’s teachers are among the best paid in the Southeast, but still lag behind the national average by several thousand dollars a year. Do you know how the average teacher pay for Georgia is computed? Principals and assistants are included! Did you know that teachers receive NO paid holidays? We are paid only for the days of their contract. A portion of the money we earn during the school year is withheld, without earning interest for us, and then is paid at the end of June, July, and August, making it seem to some that we are paid year round. Go figure.

Okay. Let’s do some figuring. I’m right about average, as far as experience and education go for a Georgia teacher. Masters degree, fourteen years experience. Broken down over a 190 day contract, figuring just 8 hours per day, I gross about $27 per hour. Pretty darn good, right? That is, until you offer other professionals here in Carrollton the same. Try seeing how much work your attorney will do for $27 an hour. Sit in your dentist’s office for twenty minutes and check your bill. Pay to have a Certified Public Accountant do your taxes. For that matter, go have a one hour massage. (I recommend it!) It seems apparent to me that our society doesn’t place a very high value on teachers, compared to other professionals with comparable education and experience. I know, I know... I could have chosen another profession if I wanted the big bucks! But I still think something is wrong.

Another objection. If an attorney is no good, they don’t get any clients. What about teachers, what do we do about the ones that aren’t much good? It would be difficult, if not impossible, and also quite unfair, to rate teachers only objectively, i.e. based on student improvement. Subjective evaluation by an immediate superior seems to work for me. Isn’t that how it’s successfully done in business? A boss isn’t a very good boss if he/she doesn’t know what kind of job the people that work for him/her are doing, are they? Whoa, what about "tenure?" Georgia, being one of the few states to outlaw unions for teachers, the term "tenure" means little more than holding a couple meetings before someone is fired. Hey, I was in business for years before I became a teacher, and if the company wanted to get rid of someone, it was as easy as transferring them, or somehow making their job so miserable that they either quit or complained themselves out of a job.

Don’t get me wrong: switching to a teaching career was the best vocational decision I ever made. I really do love it. I went into it with my eyes wide open, not hoping to change the system, but to teach kids. In this I feel immensely rewarded. The look on a child’s face when they say "I understand" is priceless. I only hope my comments might be enlightening to those who don’t know, and encouraging to other teachers, who happen to believe as I do. We are not volunteers. We are professionals. We are well trained, experienced, and hard working. We have every right to expect to be treated and compensated just as any other professional.