This week we celebrate National Teacher Appreciation Week. Here in the greater Moapa Valley, we are fortunate to have some of the best teachers in the district, and probably in the state. Many of our local teachers still carry the vision of the vital importance of their professions and take their jobs very seriously. These few and excellent teachers work diligently at their craft going well over and beyond their pay-grades to make a difference in the lives of students. It is entirely appropriate that we show appreciation to these teachers who are so invaluable to our community and our society.

The people of the Moapa Valley are actually quite good at showing appreciation to their teachers. The level of community involvement and support for education here far outweighs what is customary in other areas. This week, parent groups at the local schools no doubt have extensive plans for a full slate of activities to honor and thank teachers. This and many more efforts of community involvement in education exhibit an appreciation for teachers and the importance of the work that they do.

Despite all of this, it has to be tough these days for teachers to feel much real appreciation. Teachers in Clark County are facing the possibility of larger class sizes, fewer resources, heavier workloads and, to top it all off, an 8 percent pay cut. Unfortunately, these are the areas where the true value and appreciation of education (or lack thereof) comes through at a much more fundamental level. In the end, the apple on the desk isn’t worth much if the teacher can’t make enough to bring home the bacon.

The fact is, our society doesn’t show nearly enough real appreciation for the work that teachers do. Teachers are traditionally offered a mediocre salary with only the possibility of a middle-of-the-road lifestyle. And there is no real incentive for meeting any more than lukewarm job expectations. As a result, the teaching profession has, in many cases, become a magnet for mediocrity. It is no surprise that teaching attracts candidates who, above all, seek safety and job security; candidates who are entirely content with a career of mediocre performance. What is surprising is that there are still so many examples of exceptional teachers out there. This fact is a testament to the values and integrity of these few superb educators, some of whom work right here in our schools.

But education is no small matter. It isn’t a back-burner issue. Teachers have been entrusted with the formal education of our children! Teachers are essential in training the upcoming generation; preparing kids to compete in an increasingly rough-and-tumble global marketplace. Teacher are tasked with nothing less than the assurance of our future welfare and prosperity as a society. What work is more important than that? What profession is more valuable in the long run than this? Education should not be an industry marked by mediocre salaries and the accompanying lackluster job performance. Our society should not have allowed the education profession to make a tradition of couching itself in comfort zones. We can’t afford to settle for the mediocrity of the status quo.

Education has become a huge public investment for which we all pay dearly. It should offer a respectable and measurable return. But it has been far from a safe or sure investment. Though a tremendous amount of money has been poured into various and sundry things in the education system; the sole source of any real return for that investment remains the teacher in the classroom. For all that is paid in, we ought to be getting the very best and brightest to fill those positions. And we ought to be paying them enough to keep them there. But often that is just not the case.

In today’s world, investing in education should no longer be like buying an old, stuffy blue chip stock for its safe, narrow price fluctuations and its predictable yield of a few pennies in dividends every quarter. We are falling too far behind for that. Rather education should be like investing in a high octane, small cap growth stock; a company with a start-up mentality for thinking outside the box and a sky’s-the-limit potential. There is a need now in education for great strides to be made, new ideas to be generated, risks to be taken and innovations to be employed. A new and vital energy needs to be generated to bring our students out of the currently stagnant education system and pull them up to speed in a competitive world. Given the deep hole we are in, we’ll never get there by sitting by and maintaining a cowardly aversion to risk.

In the end, the best way to show appreciation to our teachers would be to pay them what they are worth. Where there is excellence, innovation and demonstrated results, teachers should be richly compensated commensurate to their value. By the same token, mediocre and lackluster performance; and the casual squandering of the public investment; ought no longer to be tolerated. This idea may be unsettling to many teachers out there who have found comfort in the soft stability of the current system of education. But the best and the brightest of our teachers would have nothing to fear, and everything to gain.

So, by all means, express appreciation this week to the local teachers for all that they do. If they have made a positive impact on your children let them hear about it loudly and clearly. Send in thank you notes, treats, gifts, flowers; maybe even a shiny red apple for the desk. All of that, no doubt, will help to salve some of the larger wounds being inflicted on teachers by the current budget crisis.

But also use this week to remember that there are larger matters at stake. Perhaps it is time to re-evaluate our societal priorities and bring some real changes to the way we think about, and fund, education. Making those changes would go much further to focus true appreciation on the teachers who most deserve it. But, be warned, those kinds of changes will take much more work than just sending your child to school with an apple for her teacher.