Why is education always the first place hit by cuts when states need to reduce budgets? Education is one of the biggest areas of expense, but education is also one of the most important to fund. What other service or commodity is worth more than children?

How often do I hear how important teachers are, how underpaid they are, and what a tough job they have. But those elected to govern education don’t seem to feel that way. They say that “to lower the budget, cut education costs.”

But they expect more and more from teachers. When all students, no matter their abilities or motivation, don’t meet standards, they say, “It must be the teachers’ fault.”

School districts are being compelled to entice veteran teachers to retire in order to either prevent cutting staff, or so they can hire someone to fill that position at half the cost. Many of those veteran teachers have good teaching years left.

Now, Gov. Paul LePage has proposed a bill that will negatively affect the retirement benefits these teachers were promised.

It appears he wants all those veteran teachers to retire this year. If not, they’ll have to wait until they’re 65 to receive their health insurance benefits.

So when do teachers get a break?

Banks, car companies, big business, they all got breaks. What did they do? They had parties, took trips, got bonuses.

Why is it so difficult to spend money on the children and the hardworking teachers?

Jan Bordeau, Mexico