At 10:34 AM 1/12/2005 -0500, Betsy Darken wrote:
>To everyone:
>
>
>I admit, the title to this email is a trick question.  I am trying to lure
>people with school-age children and people interested in education to come
>to the talk I am giving next Tuesday.  This talk is about what teachers
>need to know about math so they can teach it well to their
>students.

Another group we might want to worry about is taxpayers.
A high school classmate of mine who is now a middle school teacher in
Edmond, Oklahoma, sent me the following item recently that appeared as a
letter to the editor of the Oklahoma City newspaper.  It probably reflects
the thinking of many of the good people of Tennessee as well:

I, for one, am sick and tired of those high paid teachers. Their hefty
salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year!

It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they
do...baby-sit!   We can get that for less than minimum wage. That's
right...I would give them $3.00 dollars an hour and only the hours they
worked, not any of that silly planning time.

  That would be 15 dollars a day. Each parent should pay 15 dollars a day
for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now, how many do they teach
in a day.... maybe 25. Then that's 15 X 25=$375 a day.

But remember they only work 180 days a year! I'm not going to pay them for
any vacations. Let's see... that's $375 x 180 days=$67,500.00 a year.

  (Hold on, my calculator must need batteries!)

  What about those special teachers or the ones with master's
degrees?  Well, we could pay them minimum wage just to be fair. Let's round
it off to $6.00 an hour. That would be $6 times 5 hours times 25 children
times 180 days =$135,000.00 per year.

  Wait a minute, there is something wrong here!!!

P.S. I plan to attend Betsy's talk if at all possible. I encourage others
to do so as well.  My hidden agenda was to remind you.

         Tuesday, Jan 18, 3.00 pm, EMCS room 422.


Fritz W. Efaw, SB, AAdipl, PhD,
Rose of Cimarron Distinguished
Chair of  Excellent Edu-Babble.
         FACIEMUS !