Try talking to a retired teacher

It is now June 8 and I am still fuming about Jake Griffin’s lead article on June 6.

Jake, you take the word of Elaine Nekritz and Darlene Senger as gospel in the way you present your article. You are the tax watchdog, but your information is skewed to make teachers look bad. Nekritz and Senger are out to get teachers for legislature mistakes. We are supposed to carry the salvation of Illinois on our backs — again.

Your only example is of a retiree who started retirement in 1995 at $65,000 and now makes around $100,000. Most teachers retire with $45,000, as I did in 2003. We work all those years at less pay than most private sector workers; we have to continuously go to school to maintain our credentials and demonstrate that we have “kept up.” Our school districts do not pay for that.

We have the future leaders of the world in our hands but do not receive inordinate compensation for our work. We may only have six hours in the school day, but we take home many hours more of work. We also go to classes and workshops in our summer vacations. Just ask my kids.

The only thing we have to look forward to is our pension and our health care because we do not get the Social Security we are entitled to for working outside the school system.

My suggestion is that you ask retired teachers how this proposed legislation is going to affect our lives after all we have done for the nation’s children. Our pensions are constitutionally protected, but I am sure legislators will find a sneaky way around that.

This is a mess, and teachers are willing to be a part of the fix, but no one seems to care about what we need or think. Widen your information base, please.

Doris R. Aussin

Lake in the Hills