in article 73fde4f0.0307110459.170685ef@posting.google.com, John W. at
worthj1970@yahoo.com wrote on 7/11/03 9:59 PM:

> I think teachers should get paid enough to allow them to buy a home in
> the area where they teach. Sounds simple, but it doesn't always work
> that way. Rarely do teachers get fair living wage increases. Someone
> making $40,000 a year in East Tennessee can live nicely (if they have
> a dual income family); but that's also the salary teachers made near
> where I lived in Berkeley, barely enough to give any hope of ever
> buying a house.

John, I think that it is impractical to assume that a teacher should be paid
enough to allow them to buy a home in the area where they teach when that
area is in the SF Bay area. As we both know, the prices of housing in the SF
Bay area is extremely high, which means that many of the teachers,
policemen, firemen, and other governmental employees have to either commute
or rent.

It isn't that teachers are underpaid (they aren't), it is just that the cost
of housing is so high because of the SF economy, weather, and other factors
that make people want to live there.