Today was the first day of classes for the new school year, and I quickly learned that teaching 5 different preps in 6 periods is totally exhausting. Preparing 5 different classes each day will keep me so busy evenings and weekends that I was really annoyed at the local newspaper's Labor Day editorial in which they insulted all teachers for making too much money and only working 180 days, and they suggested that teachers need to give back some of our salary and benefits to help lower the state’s property taxes. In a fit of annoyance, I wrote the following letter to the editor which I have not decided if I actually want to send to the newspaper, knowing they will either toss it out or look down their condescending noses at it.

But at least I can post the letter here:

Dear Sir,

Regarding your Labor Day editorial, I was appalled to see your editorial writer repeat the most common lie about teachers: teachers only work 180 days a year.

Do you really believe there is absolutely no preparation required in school work? Two years ago I kept track of my working hours during the school year, and they approximated 1900 hours for the entire year. Divide that total by 8 hours per day and it comes to approximately 237 working days. The average working person in this country, who gets 10 paid holidays and 3 weeks’ vacation works 235 days per year.

Nor does that take into consideration that I am a math teacher. English teachers and Social Studies teachers work even more hours than other teachers do. Have any of your editors ever spoken to an English teacher to learn the truth about their working schedule? Or the fact that from September through June most teachers have absolutely no life at all?

I have a Masters’ Degree in mathematics and have been teaching fulltime for 33 years, yet I am earning approximately half the salary of my peers who also have degrees in mathematics. Half the salary. Yet nobody is crying that those workers are overpaid, underworked, or should have their medical benefits reduced or their pensions lessened.

Many people wonder why other students in other countries do better in standardized testing than students in America. For one thing, teachers are respected in those countries, not treated as if they are all overpaid, incompetent bums (which was basically the tone of your editorial). In another country the state university would not be cutting dozens of educational jobs so they could afford to give their head football coach an obscene raise for what is supposedly an extracurricular activity.

People get the educational system they deserve, and reading your editorial makes it obvious why the educational system in this country is not achieving the goals we would like it to achieve. It is easier to find a “whipping boy” in teachers who work a heck of a lot harder than most non-educators realize, or perhaps want to realize, than it is to actually support education. That would require the bulk of the populace putting time and effort into helping their children rather than devoting their nonworking time exclusively to pursuing their own level of comfort, as they blame teachers for many of society's woes even though they have absolutely no real idea what the teaching profession actually entails.

If your editors were truly concerned about education, you would send one of your reporters to my high school and shadow a Math or Social Studies or English teacher for one month. Only then would you be qualified to editorialize about how hard teachers work. Until you are willing to do that, all you are printing are anti-education slurs, which is demeaning for a major newspaper.

But that’s all right, since as long as you keep supporting the state university’s football team, who will notice or care if your editorializing is fair and responsible?