In response to a reader commenting on my original response to a Charleston SC Post and Courier newspaper article about improving local education, the following is offered. The reader stated that she believed $29k a year was a fine starting salary for teachers, because who in SC starts that high, and besides, it is a nine-month work year; that computers are not needed to teach Reading and Math, and that, by golly, she survived small-town life and poverty and can now read and write, so what's the problem?   Whew.

1. If you seriously believe that $14.50 an hour is a good starting salary for a bachelor degree-equipped (at a minimum) adult, there's a problem. I believe educational salaries across the country are almost without exception, horrific. One exception that comes to mind is the fairly recent Chicage Teacher Union strike that successfully resulted in putting salaries up in the $70k range. Might be necessary in a big city environment, but, oh btw, the local economy cannot sustain such levels. Not to run off the subject, but the city of Chicago and the state of IL are in serious, serious financial problems. The Chicago city high school graduation rate has not soared, actually has barely changed, after all that money was thrown at staff. Takes more than money. However, it is only fair that educators be appropriately salaried. Don't you agree?

2. We do not value education in America, rarely have. Our primary funding source, property taxes, is biased in itself, as such taxes bring in less from poverty stricken mostly inner-city neighborhoods and tiny towns, and are much greated in mostly white, high-income suburban areas. Go to any inner city school in any city in America and look for the: green practice fields along the regular playing fields; the pool; the planetarium; the closed circuit t.v. broadcasting system. Good luck. Students of such schools find it dangerous just to walk to and from school every day. Now, go out to suburbia, and look for used syringes, condoms, hookers, drunks, bums, liquor stores, bullet casings, that might be in the path of those students. Probably aren't going to find any.

3. If you think any K-12 teacher's work year is only nine months, there's a problem. I never met a good, dedicated teacher who didn't take work home five nights a week, do grading and planning on weekends, take summer seminar and improvement courses, and be involved in their student's lives. The education profession requires a commitment like few others. The demands, the hours, the skills required are many. Try it some time. But clear that 9-month work year out of your mind. It simply does not exist. Never really has.

4. Computers are NOT required to teach Reading and Math. Our entire education process from K-12 is in my opinion all wrong. Schools and classrooms are pretty much run on a one-size-fits-all methodology that ignores individual learning styles and needs. Kind of strange, because each student IS an individual. Schools are pretty much on the Contro Theory and What is Best for Adults, instead of benefitting learning and student achievement. I agree with the state of AZ. Their recently passed law mandates no student gets out of third grade until they are reading at that level. Additional steps have been taken in the grades below that to help assure that no student is held back, free books, adult volunteers, corporate sponsorship, etc. But, some students have been held back, and the message is getting through to all types of communities out there, urban, rural, dirt poor, the rez, etc.

5. Our national h.s. graduation rate runs somewhere in the mid-70s. Think about that. One viewpoint is that over 7 of 10 students graduate. Hurray. It also means almost 3 in 10 do not. Which is cheaper? Social welfare and prison programs/maintenance, or overhauling our approach to education so that our national graduation rate is above 96% where it belongs? How the heck hard is h.s., and m.s. anyway?

6. Internationally, whether we like it or not, we are in a global competition for business and jobs. We need to prepare our students for that environment, no matter where they eventually land in our economy. There are so many factors involved in comparing country education systems that it is almost impossible to get an accurate read. There is a system in use to try to do this. It is called Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Not perfect, but it is what it is. Fifteen year olds are tested every three years around the globe. Latest results are for 2012. In these, the U.S. ranks 36th in average scores for Math literacy; 28th in Science; and 24th in Reading. Shameful, I think, especially when you go to their website and examine which countries are scoring far ahead of us. Wow.

7. SC has some very well-performing districts around the state. In those that are not, the standard problems are there: broken families, horrible home lives, lack of legal guardian involvement, lack of sufficient funding for infrastructure, equipment, salaries, etc., lousy teacher performance, disruptive students, bi-lingual students not prepared nor able to handle a different language classroom but main-streamed anyway because it is the PC thing to do. While these same factors exist in well-off suburban, affluent neighborhoods, they exist in much smaller numbers and thus their impact is less.