Just Sayin': Is paying more for good teachers worth it?

Newsday’s Point item “Our education system’s taxing inadequacies” [Opinion, Sept. 9] cites an issue from a 1948 Newsday editorial that’s relevant today. Its history lesson, though, needs a theme.

Yes, “you only get what you pay for,” but be definitive. Should we put a higher monetary value on our public academic structure or just hope that poor student achievement and the concurrent teacher exodus right themselves?

I paid $7,000 in school taxes last year. I’d double that to lure good teachers back to the classroom. A higher salary doesn’t guarantee top quality educators. I would not prefer that the professionals with whom I deal be poorly educated so that I could save a few tax dollars. I’d rather trust in their schooled ability to make wise decisions.

I devoted my teaching years to developing in my students critical thinking, coherent writing, how to judge the merits of what one reads, and good grammar as a logical construct for persuading readers. These are invaluable skills. The 1948 editorial is correct about rising school taxes: They are “perhaps not high enough.”

— Hank Cierski, Port Jefferson Station

The writer taught English in East Meadow public schools for 33 years.

We, the taxpayers, pay enough for the education of our children. Nassau County students cost taxpayers an average of $36,000 per year per child for their education. Increasing money is not the answer. If the school boards want to really do their job, they would support their teachers and hound parents “to do their job.”

I have heard from numerous teachers that many parents just do not care. Kids will willfully not turn off their cellphones during class even when told to by their teacher, or on their laptops theywill visit websites that have nothing to do with what the teacher is teaching. The teachers’ hands are tied. Parents defend their kids.

It’s time that school boards stand up to defend their teachers and demand that parents also stand up for their teachers and not be bullied by their kids.

Maybe now is the time to start reform schools again and send these recalcitrant kids to a place where disobedience is not tolerated. Or maybe it’s time to draft these kids into the Army for six years and let them “become men and women.”

In short, kids must obey their teachers!

— John Wolf, Levittown

Let’s learn where EVs get electricity from

The concerns of a Point item, when it comes to electric vehicles, seems to be that there aren’t enough charging stations [“Does LI have enough chargers for all its EVs?”, Opinion, Sept. 16]. But where does the additional electricity to power all these vehicles come from?

If the answer is solar and wind, the unreliability of the source is being ignored. And if more nuclear power plants are mentioned, people cover their ears and run to the basement. The EV solution to climate change sounds wonderful, but it appears to be headed to a cliff.

A surge in electricity demand could lead to brownouts, blackouts and a disruption of our daily lives. Before we go full steam ahead on EV usage, we’d better understand where the reliable additional electricity is coming from. We can’t put the cart before the horse.

— Kenneth P. Lebeck, Plainview