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T.A.s undervalued

To the editor,

Last Friday's Perspectives article entitled "Teaching assistants deserve pay increase" really said that we deserve very little. From your comparisons to teaching and fast food/retail positions I gather you also know that you get what you pay for, and benefits can't be excluded from this wisdom. Your article reinforced not only how little teaching assistants are sometimes valued here at the U of A, but how educators everywhere in the United States continue to get short-changed. You missed the real cost - should trends continue - that will ultimately get passed on to the consumer, as it has in so many school settings already: a poorer quality of education. It's dangerously simplistic to think an investment in teaching assistants is not an investment in your own education. We all suffer when we don't value educators, in whatever form they come in. But perhaps I've rambled on for too long. They never keep me this long at McDonald's. So, for here or to go?

Bridget Hardy

Creative writing graduate student