So I'm sitting at home the other day recovering from traveling and read through the Letters to the Editor in our local paper. Looks like it's that time of year again for everyone to debate what teachers should and should not be making! What other job has its salary regularly evaluated in the public forum?

It's always insulting to read first the articles, which never accurately quote salaries. Somehow they manage to only state an "average" rather than minimum-maximum. And, now, they've started quoting salary including benefits, which is misleading at best.

That leads to people like this guy writing in (top letter) and making up an entirely new salary quote which is a fantastic amount of money for teachers to make. Too bad it's just that... fantastic. As in fantasy.

Considering our local paper will apparently never get it right, I felt compelled to write in and explain that no one figures salaries that way, that it's entirely inaccurate, and that future articles should take care before reporting inflated numbers. Not that they will. (My letter, bottom of the page)

The problem with constantly chewing over what teachers are or are not worth is that it reduces morale in people that deserve to have community support and forces them to be defensive about money that they rightly earn. This makes them sound like whiners because they're always justifying themselves, when really the last thing about schools that should be argued over is salaried professionals. Try curriculum age, administration interference, class size repercussions, book supplies, computers available, internet access, student behavior...

I'd like to see some true research and debate on those, instead of something that should already be settled in the public mind, and that is the right of a degreed, certified teacher to make a living.