Letters
A Bereaved Member Sends Thanks

With all my heart I wish to express my deepest thanks for the gracious and thoughtful gift of funds from the NEAFT September 11 Fund.

My brother was at the World Trade Center and his body has not been found. My family was at a loss as to how we would be able to afford the three of us traveling from Oregon to New York City for the Ground Zero Memorial. The receipt of your generous gift was a godsend.

The Red Cross covered our transportation costs, but I was informed that my school district would not consider my three days in New York as "bereavement leave" because it is too long after the event. Your gift therefore will be used to reimburse the district for the cost of the substitute and to pay for the potential loss of three days' salary that I may be charged.

Words can not appropriately express how we feel for this heartfelt expression of sympathy. Thank you all for your kindness and your prayers.

Gerry Iken
The Dalles, Oregon

A Living Wage for Paras in Mississippi...
I was extremely proud to read about Sue O'Brien and Mary Lee Grigsby organizing a campaign for a livable wage (ESP, September 2002). I am so glad that someone does realize that we are living on the poverty line as teacher assistants.

Last year, I made less than $10,000. Think about $10,000 and three kids to feed. There is just no way that should be legal. I have been working two jobs but that has gotten to be too much. This is my fourth year as an assistant in the Jackson schools, and my monthly salary is $745.40. I can't continue like this.

Here in Mississippi, the school board has a new requirement for teacher assistants to be "highly qualified." They must have 60 semester hours of college, a two-year degree, or pass a rigorous test. These are new requirements, but nothing has been said about a new salary. It's ridiculous.

I plan to go back to school in January. When I finish, I will leave my home state. You can't survive with the wages in Mississippi.

Carla Lenoir
Jackson, Mississippi

...And for Substitutes in Michigan
The article on the Vermont para-educators (ESP, September 2002) caught my eye. No one, it seems, wants to pay a decent wage to substitute or "guest" teachers, either. Forget raises. Step raises only exist in a handful of districts in my state, and from what I've seen on the Internet, that goes for the rest of the country.

I'm paid now for four years running the exact same wages per day. In Michigan, guest teachers can teach 150 days a year. I've been teaching my max for years at $72 per day--$10,800 per year. I know exactly what the woman in the article speaks of when she says paraeducators are working two and three jobs. I've been doing extra for years to support my single-parent household.

As college costs have risen over the last two years, along with housing costs, student loans, and health care, the quality of subs has diminished. Educated subs, if we can't secure a professional position, are better off at $10 to $11 an hour as clerical support.

For some reason, nobody sees guest teachers as having to pay family bills.

Jeanne Wright
Lansing, Michigan

My Year as a Nomad
When I read "My First Year" (September 2002), it brought back much emotion from not so long ago.

I spent my first year in the Los Angeles schools as a substitute. I was excited to sign my first contract to be a special education teacher at an inner-city high school.

When I showed up, I learned I would be in one teacher's room for three periods and in another room for two periods. Okay, I figured, I would make it work.

But I discovered quickly that this instability was not going to work with this special population. With another teacher's help, I arranged to have one room all day. It was approved by the office, hallelujah!

I used all my feng shui training to set up the learning environment and the students loved it. A few weeks later, I was told to move into the old auto shop. I cried.

When we arrived, there were still cars in the air, transmissions and other auto gear everywhere. I refused to be in such a dangerous environment with students who had both respiratory and behavior challenges. Eventually, we were returned to our old room. The students were so happy.

Halfway through the semester, we were informed we would be moving again. At the end of the year, I resigned.

And so, I'm substitute teaching again...

Carma Love
Los Angeles, California

Voucher Prediction
I retired three months ago after 31 years of teaching. I support the concept of public schools, but my husband and I sent our four children to a parochial school because of our religious beliefs.

Vouchers (Rights Watch, September 2002) will use public money to fund private and parochial schools. Sooner or later, the government will tell those schools that they cannot teach religion classes due to separation of church and state! No more chapel services, no more required daily Bible memory verses, and no more section on the report card labeled "Sunday church attendance by the student and his/her family."

As a parent, I do not want the government telling me what the parochial school can or cannot do! Keep our taxes in public schools.

Mary Foess
Vassar, Michigan

Broken Health Care
In Health Care Fix? (Letters, September 2002), the writer states that as a union we can stand tall on the global stage. When? Today, we are told that we don't need unions, pensions, Social Security, or universal health care. Just invest a few pennies of your Social Security money in the stock market and you will be rich when you retire.

Forty million people have no real access to health care. If you have no health insurance, you must humble yourself to get on a welfare program. Or maybe you can hold a bake sale at the local mall. We are the only industrialized nation without universal health care. Our citizens deserve better.

Raymond Maykovich
Patton, Pennsylvania

Don't Frown on Smiling All I can say about Pat Morse-McNeely's "Never Smile Before Thanksgiving" essay (Debate, September 2002) is that it is a good thing she is now retired. If I were a child and walked into a classroom my first day and each day thereafter for the next few months and my teacher never smiled, I would dread coming. That would not make for an environment conducive to learning. Kids today need to see a smiling face when they come to school. Just because a teacher smiles, that does not mean they can not control their classroom. I smile every day to my children and every child I come in contact with. I make jokes with kids every day. I do not have discipline problems. I have not had any problems in my three years of teaching.

I think any teacher who thinks "Don't be nice" is good advice should not be giving advice to new teachers.

Brandon Green
Midland City, Alabama

Yoga in School
Wow! When did teachers gain the ability to determine when a physical act associated with a religion has (or in this case doesn't have) spiritual value? Is the physical act of yoga relaxing and focusing the students mentally, or does yoga bring about some sort of spiritual transformation that places the student in a relaxed spiritual state of being (Health and Fitness, October 2002)? I don't think any human being can truthfully answer.

Can teachers also make kids face Mecca five times a day or not eat meat on Friday because it keeps the students focused?

This seems like an obvious breach of the separation of church and state.

Todd Beuke
Sequim, Washington

Social Security
Isent Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine a copy of your article on the Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision, (On Your Side, September 2002). When I began to draw my Social Security at age 62, I did not know about these punitive measures.

As a youngster I worked in the potato fields of Presque Isle, Maine, and in the summers I worked in construction on the Loring Air Force Base. I also worked summers to finance my college years and to help my family in Alaska. I had no idea these earnings were going to be discounted when I retired after 27 years in a wonderful career of teaching because of the GPO and WEP.

As a beginning teacher, I ex-pected to work summers as my salary was so low. When I retired, however, I found that my Social Security was reduced. I am really angry. What does my working summers have to do with my teacher retirement from the State of Alaska?

Thanks for helping me understand something I was too na?ve to care about at the time of my youthful exuberance and later when my aging parents needed me.

William Lyford
Cumberland Center, Maine

Teaching Teachers
There are many efforts to improve public education so no student will be left behind (Learning, May 2002), yet perhaps the major factor in improving teacher quality is not assessed: the instruction provided by colleges of education.

During 32 years of teaching, I have heard very few positive comments about the relevance of college education courses to today's classrooms.

When a college of education is ranked, the ranking is mainly based on the monetary grants its program accumulates. No one evaluates its quality of teaching. One of my former student teachers noted: "I took a course titled 'The Eight Best Ap-proaches to Teaching in the Classroom.' During the entire term, the college instructor didn't demonstrate one of them."

As teachers, we deal with students daily. We develop and evaluate curriculum that works well for students. We must insist that colleges of education have quality people who have worked successfully in the classroom, and who enjoy teaching. These are the only people who should be teaching future teachers.

Robert Rubinstein
Eugene, Oregon

Editor's note: NEA helped found and strongly supports the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, which insists on high-quality teacher education programs. Visit www.ncate.org.

A Grand Reading Plan
Does anyone really believe we can get all kids reading on grade level (Learning, May 2002)? Perhaps with homogeneous grouping; removing cable TV, VCRs, and video games from kids' homes; allowing us to teach spelling and grammar, etc., we could get close.

While we are at it, let's also have no kids on drugs, no kids abused, all parents involved and supportive, all needed materials in every school, and every kid thinking it's just great to learn every day! Wouldn't that be grand!

Gary Wilson
North East, Maryland

Go To Class
If I wrote an education law (Learning, May 2002), I would require that all students attend all classes. This may sound obvious. But, it is my experience that even though students are in school, too often they are pulled out of the classroom for various reasons, such as sporting events, band and choir practices, field trips, reward and incentive parties, "Take Your Child to Work" day, plays, and other extracurricular activities. I cannot teach students who are not in my classroom.

Marie-Anne Eickholt
Junction City, Kansas

More Laws Won't Help
I am a retired teacher and have seen many laws implemented that were guaranteed to improve education (Learning, May 2002). None of them worked. When will state and national governments learn that a quality education cannot be legislated?

The way to improve the quality of public education is to pay teachers enough to guarantee that the brightest and best remain in the classroom instead of taking more lucrative jobs in other fields.

Parents also must accept responsibility for teaching their children to value an education and enforce rules at home so that rules in school don't seem unusual.

We need to return to good common sense.

Carmelita Parrish
Macon, Georgia