They have to deal with more today

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, September 2, 2003

After reading Phyllis Hansen’s Aug. 23 letter “Teachers aren’t what they used to be,” I was miffed to put it lightly. Then I started looking through my mail and saw that I had received my NEA Today, which is what the National Education Association publishes for teachers. There were some astonishing facts in the article “Who we are, why we teach” that I thought most people don’t realize about educators.

The NEA has been recording how teachers spend their time on classroom duties since 1961. In their report due out this fall, the average teacher spends 50 hours per week on classroom duties. This has been the highest number recorded since the NEA has kept track. Fifty percent of teachers now hold a master’s degree and that is double the percentage reported in 1961. And with budget shortfalls, teachers on average spend $443 out of their own pocket to meet the needs of the classroom.

Today, many things in our society are different. Educators and administrators have to prepare our students for the WASL and the No Child Left Behind Act. Those two things didn’t exist 30 years ago. For Mrs. Hansen to say that teachers were “want-to-be professionals,” my reply is that the facts say otherwise. There is one saying that we have all heard that is so fitting: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Everett