Education is an expensive process, and it’s a process without guaranteed outcome.

There is no doubt that most teachers work hard and that most children eventually learn enough to enjoy productive careers.

Joel Biron of Auburn, Katie Fuller of Dixfield, Carolyn Curtis of Hebron and Hillary Easter of Jay are among dozens of local students named to the dean’s list at Colby College for the fall term. Hundreds more are named to deans’ lists at equally prestigious schools every year. Without good teachers, these students would not be such high achievers.

When teachers have the tools they need to teach and children have the equipment they need to learn, we all benefit. It’s the persistently climbing price tag for that benefit that riles taxpayers. School personnel – from administrators on down to substitute teachers – must allow room for the folks who pay the bills to demonstrate some emotion and express some direction about how their pennies are spent.

Last week, Auburn teacher Tina Vanasse – agitated that members of a government watchdog group questioned the budget – lashed out and angrily challenged the citizen examination as “ludicrous” and “arrogant.”

It is neither. It is appropriate. And, in the days since her outburst, readers have appropriately criticized Vanasse’s position and asserted their right to question government spending.

Taxpayers’ growing distress over the cost of education is understandable, given that educators enjoy benefits that many private-sector employees can only hope for.

For instance, the recently approved teachers’ contract for Auburn permits teachers 17 sick days over a 175-day school calendar. In the private sector, where folks work 260 days in a year’s time, permitted sick days are far more restricted, with some companies offering as few as 5 days. That, coupled with solid health benefits and guaranteed annual salary increases, puts teachers in a comfortable place. It’s a place that a lot of taxpayers don’t share.

This year, as the state pours tens of millions of dollars of additional revenue into education, taxpayers are expecting a break. It’s a break that districts, at least so far, have not offered, and taxpayers are getting grumpy.

Teachers do a lot and we support their efforts. We do not support the disdain demonstrated at the recent Auburn School Committee meeting toward the public and its pocketbook.

Teachers have supported Vanasse’s position, saying that taxpayers need only visit schools and follow teachers to appreciate the value of education. That’s true. Likewise, teachers must consider the tax-burdened plight of families who struggle without health insurance, sick days and guaranteed raises and consider what it must be like to try to raise children in homes where budgets are shrinking, not growing.