Letters

Million Mom March
The Million Mom March (news, September) had nothing to do with saving children and everything to do with re-electing politicians. Such hypocrisy is unbecoming of professional educators.

The "common sense" facts are that gun training empowers women, gun safety training saves children's lives, and armed citizens prevent 200,000 rapes and more than two million other crimes every year.

Laws permitting citizens to carry concealed guns drive crime rates down wherever they are passed. This is well documented. The truth is that since 1993, more children have been killed by automobile airbag deployment (99), than in school shootings (82), and there has never been a school shooting in a state that permitted law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons in schools.

Teachers need to examine critically the anti-gun bandwagon before they jump on it.

Scott Morris
Washougal, Washington

Boom for Whom?
Growing up in the lower economic class can be more to overcome than meets the eye (My Turn, May). It has taken me my entire life to do better, educate myself, and become successful.

What is success? No, I don't make a six-figure income. Success to me is feeling like I matter in this world and that I am a person treated with respect. Success is contributing to the community I live in.

I am white and female. I had to work very hard for what I have.I have a great appreciation for those who struggle, and sadness in my heart for all the problems that those in depressed communities must deal with.

The American media has captured the attention of our young. By portraying success, it turned our attention away from those who do not have. These messages have created the illusion that the only way to be successful is to obtain everything the upper class has.

This could lead a well-adjusted person to feel depressed and not thankful for being healthy enough to do a good day's work. Tamara Sober Giecek's program demonstrates how important this issue of economics and social class is to all of us.

Katherine Eriksen
Marshfield, Massachusetts

Multiculturalism
In response to your cover story "Beyond Taco Tuesdays" (May): As a future educator, I have been taught not to single out a designated day or week for a different culture, but to include different cultures every day.

Young children may not realize there is such a thing as diversity, for all they see are others their age. One way to keep this "childlike innocence" would be to incorporate different cultures daily into the curriculum. That way, students may not realize the differences which society is so ready to point out.

Sheree Nelson
Moorhead, Minnesota

All this focus on multicultural education is bad for kids and it can only divide our country. American public schools should be about bringing in kids of all backgrounds and uniting them as Americans. Please, let's have more emphasis on teaching what unites us. Multiculturalism can only serve to divide us into competing groups.

Mark Cohen
Huntington Beach, California

Hungry Children
Such statements as "tens of millions participate in some federal child nutrition program" (When Kids Show Up Hungry, May) cause me to wonder: What are all the present programs accomplishing besides keeping bureaucrats employed? Aren't food stamps supposed to be used for feeding the children? Why do we need more programs?

Raised during the Depression, I knew and felt the effects of poverty. But one factor made a difference: my mother. She always served us hot oatmeal and toast for breakfast.

Instead of creating new programs, why not teach those who are responsible for the alleged tens of millions of children to do such difficult tasks as boiling water? That might also show these children that someone cares about them.

Over thirty years ago, while teaching a unit on Native Americans, I discovered that our government spent a lot of money to look after these wards of the state. If this money had been given to the people, each reservation client would have received over $28,000 a year. (My salary at that time was about $7,500.) Of course, this did not happen as the Native Americans were the poorest of our people.

Think twice before launching new bureaucratic "solutions" to our problems.

James Hirn
Escanaba, Michigan

Vouchers
Tim McGee's letter (May) alleges that the nonpublic school competes with the public school. How can there be competition if his schools reject all the "reluctant" learners they cannot or will not educate?

Our Constitution forbids tax supported religions and their appen-dages. There are all sorts and conditions of religions, sects, cults, and even nonreligions. The taxpayer should not be forced to finance these "religious" schools.

Melvin Frank
Poland, Ohio

I was surprised at how much negativism I keep hearing concerning vouchers (and not just from Mr. Hosch, April letter). I am a public school teacher, and very much enjoy teaching in the school I am at. I graduated, however, from a "religious" high school.

I received a far better education there than I would have at one of the local public schools. My father, en-listed in the Army, never had extra money. I still do not understand why my parents had to pay school taxes for services they would not use.

The public education system varies. Some regions have schools that provide poor education. A little healthy competition would not hurt most public schools. It might actually do them some good.

Diana Hammermeister
The Dalles, Oregon

I am dismayed after reading the April salary squeeze article. Plenty of college graduates earn $30,000 or less, including myself, for a 12-month job. I am sick and tired of listening to teachers complain about how little they make when every time I turn around they have a day off for one reason or another.

My children maintain an A average but must tolerate teachers who refuse to explain problems and hand back homework in a timely manner.

All of us choose a profession while in college knowing the expected income. If they can no longer accept this, perhaps they should seek employment elsewhere.

Stephen Richardson
Lawson, Missouri

I am one of the large number of teachers who "moonlight" to stay afloat. This year I averaged 48 hours per week as a paramedic and 50-80 hours per week teaching, and made $33,000 (gross) for 1999. Pathetic.

I take papers along in the ambulance to grade between calls. I even bring the ambulance to the school after hours to tutor kids. No teacher should have to work that much simply to make ends meet. It seems that no matter what we do, union or not, teachers are worth nothing.

I met a wonderful teacher last year. The kids loved her, the parents loved her, and she was extremely successful in the classroom. She now delivers Coca-Cola products for nearly twice her teaching salary and is able to provide adequately for herself and her young daughter.

I became a paramedic so I could work at night to put myself through college. Now it looks like I'll have to go back to being a paramedic full-time so I can put myself through life.

Anka Keller
Tucson, Arizona

I am a first-year teacher. After making $25,000 annually working in marketing, I decided to return to school to earn my degree and do something personally fulfilling. After my hard work, I was appalled to find I would now be making less money than when I had NO degree!

I am wondering what the NEA is doing to increase pay. Aside from a few local instances cited in your articles, what is my union doing on a state or national level to help my colleagues and me?

Autumn Reiling
Wheatland, Iowa

(Editor's note: The fight for fair pay is a tough battle that NEA affiliates are waging all across America. Your local Association needs you to be involved.)

Massachusetts Tests
I wonder if Massachusetts teachers know who is scoring the state tests called MCAS (News, April). A classified advertisement in the Maine Sunday Telegram (June 6, 1999) may help explain the score discrepancies between standardized tests and the MCAS:

"Summer Work 55 Positions Available. If you have Assoc. Degree or better and would be interested in scoring assessment tests we need you."

Intrigued, I called. The pay was less than $10 an hour for temp agency employees to score Massachusetts' Comprehensive Assessment. The tests were scored by noneducators without 4-year degrees.

This seems to support the myth that, "We are all experts on education since we all attended school."

Lois Kilby-Chesley
Freeport, Maine

Child Suicide
The article "Saving Kids from Suicide" (April) is disturbingly silent on the United States Depart-ment of Health and Human Services finding that gay youth are two to three times more likely to attempt suicide than other young people.

GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, reports it is homophobia that is killing these kids. The youths at greatest risk are the ones who are least likely to reveal their sexual orientation (www.glsen.org/pages/sections/
library/reference/011.article).

The NEA has a moral obligation to counteract youth suicide by promoting a school atmosphere of dignity and respect for all students: gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and straight.

Janet Williams
Langhorne, Pennsylvania

Daughters to Work
I have seen the following problems with Take Your Daughters to Work Day (Resources, March):

• Boys who feel excluded and slighted due to their gender.

• Girls at school who feel excluded because other girls are absent.

• Parents who do not support the school in requiring their children to make up missed work.

It throws off lesson plans, lunch counts, grades, and what have you.

I am the mother of two daughters who see their parents juggle career dedication with family values. They know exactly what their parents (both teachers) do. If Take Your Daughters to Work Day were held in the summer, my daughters could see what their aunts in business careers are doing, and a summer date would not be so conspicuous to my son and others of the male gender, as well as daughters who cannot go to their parents' employment due to safety issues.

Take Your Daughters to Work Day is reverse discrimination and an insult to educational values.

As an Association, can't we nudge the Ms. Foundation to make a good idea better by moving the date?

Fran Williams
Sherman, Illinois