How about we start a grass roots movement to make public school teaching tax free.  After all, I spend thousands on my class every year and get no recompense.  I have been doing this for 21 years now.

I believe in public education.  I think public school teachers need to be believed in too.  People need to remember that teachers give up a lot to be teachers.  We give up time with our children, while we grade papers, we give up time with our spouses, (if we have them) to create new lessons, we give up our free time to decorate our classrooms.

We give up our summers to go back to school and get our masters or continuing education classes to renew our certificates.  We never stop going to school.  We attend inservices, workshops, meetings, parent conferences, IEP meetings, speech meetings, and the list goes on and on.

These days since both parents work, we have to give up our evenings to stay and conference with the parents about their child and why they are being naughty because they can't come during the day or right after school.  We are at their disposal.  We stay and we stay.

I think we need a tax free status.  It should be just like the military who are tax free when they are in a combat zone.  After all, a lot of teachers feel the same stress as if they were in a combat area.