Here is just another of the many right wing “Christian” politicians using the Bible as a weapon against those who are vulnerable.
It also shows what most of the right wing in this country think about education and teachers. According to this idiot, teachers should get low pay because they are called to teach and will teach regardless of the pay. You could say the same thing about almost anyone, including people in professional sports.
Any teacher, firefighter, or policeman…anyone making less than $200K a year that votes for a Republican; they are doing so for reasons other than for their own best interests.
“Someone alert the unions: raising teacher pay will actually make for worse teachers–according to one GOP lawmaker.
Alabama state Sen. Shadrack McGill said that increasing teacher pay is against “a biblical principle” because it might attract people who otherwise wouldn’t do the job.
“Teachers need to make the money that they need to make,” McGill said, according to the Times-Journal. “If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach … and these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It’s just in them to do. It’s the ability that God give ‘em.”
Read the rest here: Shadrack McGill, Alabama State Senator, Says Keeping Teacher Pay Low ‘A Biblical Principle’
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The same logic, as you point out, applies to all professions. In particular, it applies to Alabama state senators. Keeping a salary low for elected officials was originally proposed for much the same reason in the early years of our nation. How about applying the same logic to financiers and stock brokers and CEO’s? Or on the other hand, would paying people to seriously think about the Bible make us more accurate about interpreting it? Shadrack McGill speaks like a person who feels pretty sure he isn’t called to be a teacher.
I know a lot of teachers. I also know that that is not something I could do. It takes a certain something to teach and not everyone has that gift.
Our children are our future and I think every measure possible should be taken to ensure they are given the absolute best education there is. That means attracting quality people into the education field, which means paying a decent salary; more than they are getting now.
The educational system in this country needs to be reworked. Right now, schools get the bulk of their money from property taxes. That means the schools in the more affluent areas get more money, while those in the less affluent areas – the place where more money needs to be spent – get less money. It is totally backwards and contributes to the vicious cycle many people on the lower end of the economic scale find themselves trapped within.
So, when people disrespect teachers, like this idiot here, it gets my dander up a bit.
You are right about the need to attract teachers, and sometimes the sense of calling is not enough. If someone can’t support a family by teaching, he won’t get to teach whether called or not. On the other hand, giving teachers really lucrative salaries attracts the greedy, not the talented. We have to walk a fine line here. In our culture, we link respect with salary, and to give teachers low salaries means giving them little respect as well.
As a teacher, I have seen the corruption work both ways, both the corruption of too much money and the corruption of too little. I really feel perplexed about what should be done.Please keep writing about this issue and maybe if enough people get thinking about it we can find an intelligent approach rather than the idiotic approach of our state senator.
Here is an article I wrote last year about the educational system in this country and how I think it could be fixed.
http://www.outofstepper.com/fixing-the-public-educational-system-in-america/