Thank you, editors of the News & Observer, for publishing a letter from Mr. Leon DeBaer, who is (or was) a seventh-grade science teacher at Zebulon GT Magnet Middle School.  Here is the letter in its entirety:

Try a teacher’s pay

I must have missed the part of the April 23 Point of View piece “A chance to raise standards” where author Terry Stoops said that he is going to go back to being a teacher.

The new standards, as proposed by the Republicans, are so enticing that surely he has decided to give up his position as director of Research and Education Studies for the John Locke Foundation in favor of re-entering the classroom. He must be especially psyched about the mind-boggling $500 a year salary increase along with teacher salaries so low that they are at 46 in the nation.

Before Stoops, or anyone else, becomes a shill for the Republican education agenda, they first need to demand that teacher salaries be brought up to a the national average.

Leon DeBaer, Knightdale

My recent N&O op-ed, “A chance to raise standards,” focused on the issue of teacher tenure.  Predictably, Mr. DeBaer does not address the arguments and facts laid out in the op-ed.  That takes too much work.

Rather, with invaluable assistance from the editors of the News & Observer, Mr. DeBaer takes a swipe at me.  That’s fine.  It makes me feel young – like I’m in seventh-grade again.