Your assertions that teachers work only 6 hours per day and 36 weeks per year is misguided. Most teachers spend a very significant number of hours every week outside of school planning lessons, extracurricular activities, and grading papers/tests. As a programmer, I'm sure you're only hired to work 40 hours a week, and yet you insist that you put in 60. Granting you the benefit of the doubt, would it not be foolish and rude to state that you really only work 40 hours, simply because that's the contractually mandated work-day? It would shameful for anyone to question your integrity and work ethic in such a manner. And yet you presume to do precisely that with teachers. Anyone with any knowledge of education knows that the vast majority of teachers put in numerous hours at home grading papers/tests, planning lessons, and preparing/attending extracurricular activities for their students. Like any other salaried profession, teachers work until the work is done, even if the bell rang hours ago.

Misrepresentations of fact aside, I think you're missing my primary point, and I'm wondering if we don't simply disagree on a very basic point: the value of teachers.

To me, time on the job is not a primary factor in evaluating professional value. Indeed, it's not a factor in any private business for anyone but hourly employees. Instead, value is determined by the significance and quality of the work, as well as the level of education, skill, and experience necessary to complete the job. It's why your salary as a programmer is the same whether it takes you 30 hours to do your job or 60. This is the model applied for all professionals, and it doesn't make any sense to alter this basic business tenet for teachers.

Personally, I feel the work that teachers do is worth far more than most are compensated. I believe that our community's willingness to idly compensate marketing executives, salesmen, and even manual laborers, through our purchase of unnecessary goods at an inflated cost, with $100,000 paychecks, all while condemning teachers making less than half as much, speaks volumes about the degradation of ethics and morals in modern America.

It's obvious you don't agree with me, which is your right. However, I find it abhorrent that you probably spend $50 on coffee or fast food in a couple months, but are so up in arms about the possibility of paying less than that in taxes to fund the education and future of our children.

I do, however, agree with you on one point: school should be in session year round.