Laws, not recession, driving teachers away

Tom Luna’s statement that “the recession was more likely the culprit for why more teachers were ditching the profession” in Idaho left me incredulous. From this comment I can only deduce that (a) Idaho teachers are so underpaid that they would leave their profession/position to take their chances in the private sector or move to another state to teach; or (b) Idaho teachers make so little that theirs are the second income in two-income families and their spouses felt the need to leave and find new work.

How Luna can fault the recession for teachers leaving their positions is beyond me. Are teaching jobs being outsourced to China or India? Is the private sector job market looking that good these days? Is there something I don’t know?

There is a constant refrain from the right about public sector employees, including teachers, lapping at the taxpayers’ trough. Perhaps Luna’s long-term strategy is to keep teachers in a permanent state of underpayment and eventually so many of them will quit that he can declare and emergency and turn the whole education system over to a for-profit corporation. Farfetched? Maybe, but maybe not that much. Then watch your taxes when a 20-percent profit margin is figured in.

TED WERT

Sagle