McCain, as well as George W. Bush and our own state political leaders, has a perspective on public education that I just don't understand. McCain wants to "put our students first." Like that's a new idea.

For 32 years I have taught English in Utah public schools. Excuse me, John, but what exactly do you think I've been doing this whole time? Who do you think I've been putting first?

McCain said he was going to answer to parents, not to teacher unions. Who do you think the teacher unions are? People like me, people who have dedicated their lives to putting students first. So are teachers the enemy?

Teacher unions are trying to make sure I make a decent living, have health insurance, am safe in my work environment and am treated fairly, ensuring that we continue to have people who will accept the calling to be teachers. Is that wrong?

McCain said he was going to get bad teachers out of the classroom. I certainly agree with that one. The problem is, who are the bad teachers? In 32 years I have only come across one. And she left teaching after two years. I have known teachers I did not want my own children to have, but those same teachers have ardent supporters in other parents. So who gets to decide?

Finally, McCain decries a failing system. Have we really failed? Public schools are doing everything McCain asks of us with inadequate funding, facilities, textbooks and technology. Sitting in public school classrooms are students with autism, Down syndrome, ADHD, dyslexia and a host of physical and mental challenges. There are abused children, drug addicts, pregnant girls, clinically depressed adolescents, gang members and students with myriad social and emotional issues.

There are students from families facing economic hardships, students who are putting in 40-hour workweeks and then falling asleep in high school classrooms, students who are trying to raise younger siblings, students who are undocumented immigrants, students living out of cars and students who don't speak English and don't understand what we are saying to them.

We teach them all.

As our country faces each new crisis, the solution always seems to be to dump that on the public schools. We are now teaching kids to balance their checkbooks, understand interest rates and avoid bankruptcy. We are teaching kids to drive and to fill out job applications. We are teaching them about sexual abstinence (although not how to protect themselves if abstinence is not their choice).

We are feeding them free breakfast and lunch. We are providing students with advisory teachers, so they have a caring adult they can turn to. We are refusing to let them buy junk from vending machines. Every Utah teacher received a booklet this summer (at what cost to taxpayers?) that told us we were to teach ethics in our classrooms. Didn't these things used to be done by parents?

Yet, we are to make sure every student functions on grade level. It doesn't matter if the students come to us four grade levels behind, if they do not attend class, if they are low-level learners, if their parents are illiterate, if they have no interest in learning, if their parents do not value education.

If the student fails, the school fails. No one wants to leave children behind. Certainly not me. But what do I do with the student who doesn't want to learn or the parents who don't care? Does John McCain even know those people exist?

McCain said that we need to make it easier for qualified people to become teachers. Who are these people? People out in the business world making $100,000 a year? Do you honestly think they are going to leave their expense accounts, their paid vacations, their ability to call in sick without preparing for the day anyway, their ability to go to the bathroom whenever they want, to face public school challenges for $40,000 a year? Seriously? McCain needs a dose of reality.

Then he concluded with a cry for people to serve, to become teachers. Why would anyone become a teacher, knowing that teacher is going to be blamed for the ills of a nation?

It's hard to be told I'm a failure because I am not 100 percent perfect with 100 percent of students whose attitudes and situations I do not control. It's a standard I strive for, but simply can't live up to. It's hard to be told that I, as a member of a teacher union, am the enemy to students and parents. It's hard to be told that I am not appreciated, and my work is not valued.

You call for support of the troops, John. How about support for the teachers in the trenches? I feel like those Vietnam War soldiers must have felt when America wasn't supporting them.

You have made me cry, you have given me a headache. After your speech, I tried to get an hour or two of sleep before I showed up in my classroom the next morning, ready once again to put students first.

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* VIRGINIA RILEY has taught English for 32 years in Davis County School District, in junior highs and high schools, every grade from 7-12, to Advanced Placement, remedial, regular and honors students.