Letter: Do the math: Teachers offer great value

Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or10 months a year. It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do — babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That’s right. Let’s give them $3 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. with 45 minutes off for lunch and plan, equaling 6 1/2 hours).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to babysit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day, maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 times 30, equals $585 a day.

However, remember, they only work 180 days a year. We shouldn’t pay them for any vacations.

That’s $585 x 180 = $105,300 per year.

What about those special education teachers and the ones with master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8 an hour. That would be $8 times 6 1/2 hours times 30 children times 180 days, equals $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute! There’s something wrong here!

The average teacher’s salary (nationwide) is $50,000. Fifty-thousand times 180 days equals $277.77 per day. Multiply that times 30 students at $9.25 for 6.5 hours and it equals $1.42 per hour per student, a very inexpensive babysitter and they even educate your kids!

What a deal!

Tags: opinion, letters, politics, troy