Reinstate what voters approved

My wife and I are both public school teachers. She works for Everett and I work for Mukilteo. We have invested tens of thousands of dollars in our post-baccalaureate education in order to learn how to be more effective teachers for our students and our communities. We have an expectation that we will be adequately compensated for our service to the community. The voters of Washington, in 2000, agreed with those expectations and supported Washington teachers by passing Initiative 732, the cost-of-living-adjustment initiative.

I-732 is simply a way for teachers to keep up with yearly inflation. We are people with houses, cars and children, and many of us can no longer afford to stay in the teaching profession. To put things into perspective for the general community, the lost adjustment wages from the last two years alone (from the revocation of I-732 in 2003) will cost a new teacher almost $90,000 over the course of a 25-year teaching career. Now consider what teachers will lose if I-732 is never reinstated.

This is not only about compensation. It is about respect for teachers. It is about respect for education. But even more important, it is about the will of the voters. I-732 passed by 63 percent in 2000.

Jason Call

Everett