No teacher left behind

The recent news stories about budget disasters in the public school system are a great example of state (i.e., government) control of education. A quick internet search shows that classroom sizes are now close to half of those when I went to school decades ago. And salaries for teachers are not low by any means.

The media makes the whole thing about the children “winning” if unions prevail. No one seems to consider that the learner actually comes before the teacher. We need to put teaching in its proper place, and in most cases where adults arrived at success in life, education first started with good parents. The desire to learn or how to think must be the first mover in order for real education to occur. If teaching is imposed on unwilling or apathetic learners it’s the opposite of valuable. You don’t automatically get better products by paying more in labor costs. School is no exception.

Factory floors aren’t created first, with the price of the widget determined after you spend a fortune on the factory. A good way to go out of business is to build something and then price it based on what it cost to produce. The value of any teacher is imputed from the value the learners get. Not the other way around.

Voters, wake up. It’s your money. Demand accountability from the top down and from the bottom up. Great teachers really should be well paid. It’s not always just about the children.

Pete Caneer

Spokane