CUTTING THE MUSTARD
I wnat to tell you a short story that deeply bothers and saddens me. I call it cutting the mustard.
Saturday evening my wife (a high school teacher) and I had supper at a local restaurant and our waitress was a young woman my wife had previously taught with at her high school. The young teacher had moved from that high school to another in an adjacent county recently. This young gal has a master's degree from the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia (touted as one of the finest in the country) and has been teaching English for about 4-5 years. She is waitressing to make ends meet since her school salary just doesn't cut the mustard.
It seems to me that something is very wrong with this situation. How do we ever hope to obtain and keep bright talented young (or any new teacher for that matter) teachers with a salary that makes the person have to do a second job - and I know this teacher is not alone. Surely we value our children's education enough to have our teachers receive a living wage.
