The Augusta Courier

THE TEACHER IS NOT A BEGGAR

(From The Atlanta Constitution)

When the kindly lady asked the little boy whom he loved, the lad replied, "I love my mama and my daddy and I love my teacher, but in between come a lot of dogs."

Recollection of the anecdote is invoked by the reaction in some quarters to the suggestion that teachers deserve a cost-of-living raise.

Now we understand that the teachers as a group have not asked for an increase and that the suggestion is a recommendation from the board of directors of the teachers' professional organization, the Georgia Education Association. What we cannot understand is the vehemence with which members of the state school board have protested the suggestion.

"Ill-timed and unwise," says one. "Ungrateful," says another, who adds that the teachers have had the temerity to oppose measures sponsored by the state administration. Still another board member counters with the warning that it may even become necessary to cut teacher pay.

The present salary schedule for Georgia teachers is based on the 1948 dollar. The suggestion that an increase is in order is based on the undisputed fact that inflation has reduced the value of that dollar, thus robbing the teacher of the benefit of the salary increase provided by the Minimum Foundation.

Within the last two years some state department heads, judges, yea, even the legislators have been given pay increases as justified by the higher living cost. We heard little talk of "ill-timed and unwise" when those raises were asked. The teacher is a public employee entitled to the same consideration.

As for gratitude, the teacher's salary is not a gift for which she must be eternally obeisant. Nor is teacher pay the price of allegiance to a state administration and all its proposals. The person who teaches school is also a citizen of the community, entitled to his opinion and an expression of it.

Vindictiveness has no place in the pay picture.

"The Minimum Foundation Program is to improve the schools and benefit the children and is not a teachers' salary bill as some misguided members of the GEA seem to think," a fourth state board member has declared.

We would remind the man that the program emphasizes the word "Minimum." This is the least we can do for our schools, the state was saying when it passed the MFP. And among the things that can "improve the schools and benefit the children," good teaching tops the list.

Schools are plagued now by a shortage of good teachers. As we raise the standards for the profession, so must we raise the pay.

Under the present schedule the beginning teacher with four-year certificate gets $2,400 a year. The most she can expect it $3,300, after nine years' experience and acquisition of a master's degree. The skilled laborer does much better.

We understand that in some schools the teacher asked to do extra duty at a football game gets $3 extra pay. The policeman who stands beside her at the gate gets $5. That seems the prevailing standard of values.

Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a pupil on the other made a great educational institution, according to a famous quotation. We've been very active to make the school building something better than a log. We are not going to get enough educators of the Mark Hopkins standard unless we are willing to foot the bill.

Let's have done with this talk of "untimely and ungrateful." When and if the teachers actually ask for a raise, let's see if we can't manage to pay them salaries commensurate with the cost of living and the responsibilities of the job.

brains of the youth of this state.

Now in Georgia we have tried to establish a minimum of two hundred dollars per month for a school teacher. The maximum is thirty-three hundred dollars a year.

Now a school teacher could make this money driving a truck or a bus and it would not be necessary for them to spend four year in high school and from four to seven years in college preparing themselves for the job and if they wanted to better themselves financially it wouldn't be necessary for them to either read or write. They could just get a job as a plumber or a brick mason and not waste any of the years on an education.

So, while our first consideration is the welfare of our children there is also a question of justice involved and the teachers work for the rest of us.

They work for the public and they are entitled to just compensation in keeping with their skill and their training.

Now to call the teachers ungrateful just because they would like to be able to be paid for their services just as everybody else is paid is something beyond reason.

Every intelligent person knows that they are entitled to just compensation and they should not be required to be beggars as they have had to be in the past.

It stands to reason that we must entrust one hundred million dollars a year to the teaching profession to spend and that if we expect to get our money's worth then we must have well-trained, competent and efficient schoolteachers.

We not only entrust the spending of all this money to them, but we entrust into their loving care the minds and the character of our children.

The fullest development of the minds of our youth and fullest development of their character depends upon having the finest personalities we can possibly get in the teaching profession.