Editor's Note

Seeing the Light

Marilyn Milloy, Editor-in-Chief

We don't often ring in the fall with a lament, but when the staff at NEA Today heard the story of Kirk Petit, a dedicated Nebraska teacher who works three jobs to make ends meet, we had to wonder: Could low pay really be wreaking this kind of despair on educators? Well, yes, and excuse the shock.

Shamefully, as our cover story  notes, Petit is no anomaly, and the proof is in the numbers: teachers make less on average than people working in almost any comparable profession. The toll is personal, for sure. But it's also profession-wide: More often than not passionate folk with talent and chutzpah are saying thanks, but no thanks, when faced with the reality of their potential earning power in a public school. Meanwhile, the shining stars of the classroom, faced with mounting debt (and more testing, paperwork, and curious new laws), are packing up and bidding the schoolhouse adieu.

It's why NEA is making an all-out push to sell the message that educators—and foremost the kids they nurture—are simply worth more. The pitch will not be easy: the public and its decision makers must shed decades-old assumptions about what educators with "all that time off" do and how hard they work. Only then can the down-and-dirty work of bringing salaries up to par begin.

It's not an impossible row to hoe, but it does require that every educator play a role. So as you forge into autumn, roll up a sleeve, kick up a little dust, and join the campaign. Then celebrate the power of your work. I say that with great sincerity as I sign off, with this issue, as editor of NEA Today. Other paths beckon, but I'll be following them with a grateful eye on all those steady-handed public educators like you who—yes, despite the pay—ushered me down that first and most important path: to high school graduation. Thanks for continuing to carry that banner, and for the honor of allowing me and the exceptional staff at NEA Today a place in your lives.

Keep writing and calling. Keep celebrating. And don't forget to say a thing or two the next time somebody asks, "Why more pay?" With your collective wisdom writ large, the nation is bound to see the light.

Photo: getty images