LETTERS: Vacancies show teacher pay too low

To the editor:

It must be that time of year for the annual lottery to see which 20,000 children in the Clark County School District will end up in classrooms with the 650 adults who have at least 60 college credits. Thousands of other children will have their teachers quit during the school year, as inexperienced and overwhelmed teachers and substitutes decide that they do not want to teach.

The rest of the teachers will experience some of the largest class sizes in the nation. Perhaps it would be more accurate to end the Pledge of Allegiance every day with, “May the odds be ever in your favor.”

Letter writer J.D. Moses states that Nevada’s average teacher salary ranks 18th in the country, and that it is a job that many people could do, if they wanted (“Teacher salary comparisons not valid,” Aug. 31 Review-Journal). Clearly, with 650 openings, having the 18th-ranked average salary of an underpaid, under-appreciated and overworked profession is not something that these many people want to do.

Unfortunately, there are too many people who think they can teach because they know something or because they attended school once. Most of these people have never been the only adult in a room of 40-plus children, much less tried to teach them. Please Mr. Moses, apply for an alternative route to licensure and fill one of those 650 open positions. Lead those children to the promised land.

The starting teacher salary is relevant to the perennial teacher shortage. High teacher turnover within the first five years of teaching is probably directly related to the high cost of a college education and the low starting teacher pay.

Many people share the concern of the misplaced value on entertainers over educators, on wealth over wisdom and on cash over compassion, and together, we can vote to invest in our future. Teachers have no other recourse than to reach out to the citizens and politicians of Nevada. Teachers in Nevada do not have the right to strike, and their union is limited in its negotiations by some of the worst per-pupil funding in the nation.

JEREMY M. CHRISTENSEN

LAS VEGAS

Blame Bush for Iraq

To the editor:

Now that Sherman Frederick, former publisher of the Review-Journal, is no longer in that role, where does he reside? Lakes Crossing? After reading his Sept. 7 commentary (“Goodness, snakes alive! Appeasement failed!”), it’s the only place I can imagine that would have him around.

Where does one start to address his total distortion of time and facts?

First, President George W. Bush didn’t pay attention to the reports about al-Qaida, and 9/11 took place on his watch.

Second, between Dec. 6 and Dec. 15, 2001, U.S. forces had Osama bin Laden trapped in the Tora Bora mountains and let him escape to live and plan for another nine years.

President Bush almost never won anything. He started a war in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. He failed to obtain an agreement with the Shia-dominated Iraq government — which he put in place — to keep U.S. forces in the country. He left Iraq in such a mess, nobody could have done anything to make it better.

The reason for ISIS and the rest of the mess is the destabilization of Iraq and not putting in place a government coalition that disregarded religious sects. Enough U.S. blood has been spilled in that country and Afghanistan. Where are all the other countries?

The only rattling I hear is Mr. Frederick’s brain rolling around in his cranium.

JOSEPH FREEMAN

LAS VEGAS