Low Pay Threat To All Education, Teachers Declare

"If public opinion movements do not raise salaries now, teachers will go on strike next year," declared Professor A. J. Burke of the New York State Teachers Association at an Emerson Hall panel discussion on education problems last night.

Under the aegis of the Students' Committee on Professional Interests of the Graduate School of Education, Burke joined four other speakers to denounce the present teaching situation which he declared "so bad that is is stimulating crime and dishonesty."

"Former teachers," continued Burke, are working as chambermaids, waitresses and salesgirls, and as a result of the present unattractiveness of the educational profession, the lower academic half of high school graduates are going into teaching."

Professor James Palmer, of the Newton School Committee, cited comparative figures to prove that the U. S. neglects its teachers. Great Britain, according to Palmer, spends over 30 percent more on education than the U. S., and the U.S.S.R. allocates an annual figure of seven and one half billion dollars to educators' salaries compared to two and one half billion for the U. S.