To the editor:

Letter writer Steve Freund in the May 13 Call was almost convincing in his defense of the Mehlville Board of Education and its decision to reward Superintendent Terry Noble with a $40,000 raise — even though Mr. Noble himself had nobly stated that “he was here for the students, not the money.”

Mr. Freund’s concluding punchline, “How many of us would begrudge an experienced, qualified surgeon the charges he or she assesses when a human life is saved?” was unfortunately a faulty analogy. The Noble compensation would be more like this: “How many of us would pay an experienced, qualified surgeon $226,000 for a lifesaving heart transplant for which his happily assessed fee was $181,000?” 

By the way, did you know that Superintendent Noble will now be paid more than the vice president of the United States and the chief justice of the Supreme Court? And they haven’t had a raise since 2001.

You could look it up at

.

Judy Rauh

south county