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06 June 2012
The two page ad that was posted in the Fluvanna Review of May 31 by the Fluvanna Taxpayers Watchdog Association was astonishingly insulting to the teachers, and students of Fluvanna County. The premise of the ad seems to be that teachers today are generally dimwitted, lazy and not at all ambitious. And, therefore, they are not worth what we are paying them. Tellingly, the ad makes no mention of the students they are teaching.
The ad seems to suggest that students and their parents should be happy with what ever they get. The ad uses gross statistics in an obviously biased way. An average national salary for teachers that obviously includes a large number of comparatively well paid urban and suburban teachers is totally irrelevant when evaluating what teachers in Fluvanna are paid. Our teachers are ridiculously underpaid by comparison to the teachers in an affluent area like Fairfax County.
Furthermore, and importantly, I have never met a rich teacher. In the private sector, everyone is striving to get rich and some few do achieve huge wealth. Those who elect to teach know from the outset that this will never happen for them. They are in it for the service they perform and the rewards that flow from that service. Their choice to teach should be applauded. They certainly do not deserve to be gratuitously insulted. I am the son of a teacher.
(Editor’s note: Mr. Nixon is a part-time sportswriter for the Fluvanna Review.)
