Politician: Don’t Pay Teachers More
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File photo. iStockphoto/Thinkstock(HUNTSVILLE, Ala.) — An Alabama state senator just made himself an enemy of the state’s nearly 50,000 teachers.
“It’s a biblical principle: If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach,” State Sen. Shadrack McGill, a Republican, said at a prayer breakfast earlier this week.
McGill’s comments were in response to a question about a legislative pay hike that raised his salary as a part-time legislator to $49,500.
“It’s absolutely astounding that a legislator believes that a part-time legislator ought to make twice the money of a full-time teacher,” David Stout, a spokesperson for the Alabama Education Association, told ABC News. “He seems completely out of touch.”
McGill told ABC News affiliate WAAY that his comments were taken out of context.
“The point that I was trying to make in the speech is simply that … things ought to be in balance,” he said. “I believe God made everything to be in balance. He weighed the Earth and the valley and the mountains and the hills on a scale to keep them in balance because he knew he was going to be spinning it real fast, so that’s the gist of it.”
McGill did not return ABC News’ request for comment.
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