Our society’s priorities out of whack

Sheila Morse, Henderson

Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.

Something is radically wrong.

All day Sunday the media were filled with sound bites, comments, programming of all sorts and, ultimately, the Super Bowl. Millions of dollars were spent on advertising and other activities related to the Super Bowl.

The next day the governor of Nevada, in his State of the State address, discussed our sad economy and mentioned the impending cuts in many state positions, including education. He tried to call it a reforming of education, but we all know what he was really saying.

What kind of society are we living in? What kind of legacy are we preparing for the future when we can support sports activities with millions of dollars but our bottom-ranked educational system is being reduced? How can we sit by and watch ballplayers, many of whom cannot write a paragraph, get paid salaries in the millions while teachers with advanced degrees are earning a pittance and are facing salary and position cuts?

A ballplayer receiving about $1 million a year gets about $83,000 a month while a Nevada teacher earning $36,000 a year sees about $3,000 a month. This has nothing to do with politics or party loyalty. It’s just common sense. A civilization can survive without one ballplayer, but not one can go forward without teachers.

When are we going to properly place our values?

The writer is a retired public school teacher