Susan Smith: Wrong to blame teachers' unions when schools underfunded

To The Daily Sun,

Tony Boutin's Aug. 21 letter shows his disdain for public education and teachers under the guise of teachers’ unions being the cause of academic performance issues. New Hampshire doesn’t prioritize education, ranking dead last for the percentage of state funding for education. NH consistently fails to fulfill its obligation to provide an adequate education to all students. Perhaps underfunding schools has something to do with academic performance.

Teachers in NH make close to 20% less in pay than non-teachers with similar college degrees. Certainly they don’t go into teaching for the money.

Where did he come up with “hundreds of thousands of teachers graduated in the bottom 25% of their college class?” Absurd disinformation. Speaking of college, NH has a teacher shortage. What does the Legislature do? Cuts funding to the University System of NH whose three schools prepare teachers. Wouldn’t it be helpful to train and retain teachers in NH?

Schools use AI and technology tools to enhance the learning experience; not replace human interaction. Today’s student body includes those who: come from broken homes; are homeless; are hungry; don’t have appropriate clothing to wear; have significant medical or behavioral issues; have learning disabilities; anxiety and mental health disorders, etc. Teachers provide for the social and emotional wellbeing so that students are able to learn despite these challenges. Yet he’d replace them with robots. 

He has no idea what goes on in today’s classrooms or the life of a teacher. I challenge him to spend a full 24 hours with a teacher. See what time they get up, get to school, do during the school day, leave school, time they spend at home doing school work, time they get to bed, time they go in on school vacation weeks and in the summer. 

Then maybe he can stop denigrating teachers and public schools.

Susan Smith

Gilford