Education: Without a Glove

In New York City, 1,000 teachers in the past school year have left because they didn’t get paid enough. A group called the New York City Teachers’ Interest Committee polled 3,500 of the teachers who stayed on the job, discovered that three-fourths of the men and one-fourth of the women were doing sideline work to get along. Last week, at a meeting of the Teachers’ Interest Committee, war veteran Philip Lynch, 33, who is a junior high school teacher of the social sciences, explained why he had taken an after-hours job. Said he:

“Maybe some of you people can make ends meet. . . . Personally I feel that on my salary [$51.25 a week] I’m in right field without a glove. But I’m doing something about it right now. In the Army I had a swell pal. He’s no Ph.D. but he’s living nicely, and look at us. This fellow Joe offered me a job last week. I said I’d think it over. But I’m through thinking. Know what job Joe offered me? Tending bar. I’ll get $60 a week for around 48 part-time hours. . . . Why, do you know that bartenders now discuss teachers’ salaries as something terrible?”