Mark/Cass,

I don't believe complaining or comparing are the correct approaches to this situation. Comparisons might be useful in a completely objective sense, but it doesn't appear anyone here is making a serious effort to remain unbiased. If we start the "my job is harder than your job" bickering, we'll end up with little more than a childish spat. After all, if you turn on the discovery channel you'll quickly find someone working 16 hour shifts for months, away from their family, and under dangerous conditions. Catching crab. A bit more strenuous than teaching or computer programming.

The real focus should be on how much we value education and the work that teachers do. In our capitalist economy, valuation of an occupation determines its financial reward. Thus, if we want to accurately determine what teachers should be making, we need to seriously consider their worth to society and our community. Comparison comes into play only as a means of evaluating our own community ethics in accordance with the value we allot to a variety of occupations.

The question for our community then is, how much are willing to sacrifice to provide our children with a quality education? Are we content with the best teachers finding more rewarding work in other districts, or never even entering our classrooms? Is it acceptable to let our children spend most of their childhood with people with starting salaries of less than $30,000?

I'm a firm believer in two things: capitalism and education. Where one fails, so does the other. You cannot pretend that capitalist principles don't apply to the teaching profession, no matter what reports you cite. If you feel that the teachers in our community are compensated just fine as is, then do not expect educational excellence for your children. Expect that, like in every other aspect of your life, you're going to get what you pay for.

As an aside, for the sake of addressing Cass' complaint, I'll cite only the fact that an individual would be better compensated working as a Customer Service Rep or a Repair Technician (and certainly a programmer) in Butler than entering a teaching career.

Perhaps some people think that those positions are more valuable to our society than teachers. Obviously Cass does. But for the sake of my own children, for the sake of all of our children, I absolutely do not.