Eileen Pruette: Not exactly poverty

Regarding the Aug. 30 Point of View “ ‘I submit to being voluntarily exploited’ ”: I am willing to engage in a community conversation about whether teachers’ pay should be higher. But I am unwilling to begin the conversation based on the rantings of Gene Nichol and the “play the victim” story of Angela Scioli:

1. Scioli put herself out as not being paid enough to afford groceries. Perhaps she has elderly relatives in nursing care, or children with high medical needs. Basis for sympathy, yes, but not appropriate factors for establishing salaries for teachers or anyone else.

2. It is also insulting to anyone who has truly struggled in poverty to suggest that a short-term cash crunch compares in any way to a life of grinding poverty.

3. Scioli is not daily on the front lines fighting the effects of poverty in her job, as Nichol suggested. She teaches at Leesville Road High School, which is mostly middle and upper-middle class, with one of the lowest free and reduced lunch populations in the school system. So let’s begin the conversation from an honest starting point.

This story was originally published September 5, 2015 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Eileen Pruette: Not exactly poverty."