Dear Mr. Hildebrand, 
As a former corporate executive who left the private sector, and took a sizable pay cut to teach high school social studies, I found your article on teacher salaries on Long Island to be not only one sided and lacking any balance or perspective whatsoever, but also a piece of "yellow journalism" meant to prey on, and further stoke the incipient and increasing resentment toward public sector employees. 
As an executive, I worked incredibly long hours, and weeks without weekends. I too had heard about the "easy life" of teachers who worked only until three o'clock, and had summers off. (Teachers do not work until three o'clock, but grade papers and exams often long into the night, and certainly over the weekends.) All the stories of burned-out teachers doing nothing relevant or exciting inside the classroom had also permeated my consciousness as a truism. 
What I have discovered since I began teaching at a Long Island public high school just over a decade ago, has been a revelation to me. The people I work with are some of the most motivated, ambitious, and dedicated people I have ever worked with. The stress of this "piece of cake gig", and the amount one leaves on the "field" all day in front of adolescents, is so draining that I could never even consider doing this job twelve months a year. I would burn out within a few years, and would flee back to the more lucrative "cushy" private sector in a heartbeat. 
Regarding the pay issue, I wonder why you never included in your article any comparative statistics of what the average and median pay is for a professional with at least a Master's Degree, working and living on Long Island? I'm curious where your examples were of the armies of young teachers who cannot even begin to imagine how they will able to afford to actually own a home and live near where they work, in an area where real estate prices and the cost of living are both among the highest in America? And while you were quick to discuss starting and top salaries, I was interested in why you never included a list of other professions which actually have a MAXIMUM salary one can earn. Certainly I can not think of any industry that does not allow it's employees to earn an unlimited amount of compensation? I was also wondering why you chose to highlight North Shore school districts, which pay the highest salaries, yet never bothered to point that fact out to your readership? 
When mentioning the top pay scale, did you mention how many years it actually takes to receive a PhD., or let your readers know how few teachers comprise that pay level, or again, what comparative salaries are for professionals with Ph.D's working, or living on Long Island? No, you did not. That might have allowed readers to put those selective salary facts into perspective, and better understand the realities of what those salaries actually represent. But, then that would defeat the goal of getting taxpayers riled up, denying them the designated and appropriate scapegoats upon whom they could level their fury, reflecting their own economic anxieties and frustrations 
Instead of doing a piece which outlines the declining fortunes of so many middle class and working class employees on Long Island due to disappearing pensions, exploding health care costs, and college tuition, all resulting directly from Conservative, pro-business policies over the last 30 years, you chose the simple minded path of exploiting "easy targets". What purported to be a "hard hitting investigative" piece of journalism was nothing more than a piece of inflammatory "yellow journalism" - red meat to the ravenous mob. 
Instead of informing readers about the realities of what's actually transpired all over this nation to hard working people over the last generation or so, with the purpose of raising their consciousness to inspire them to begin to fight back and demand a return to real pensions, and universal affordable health care, and reasonable college tuition rates, you provoke envy and anger towards those who still have some of those economic necessities. 
I have been a faithful Newsday subscriber for 15 years now, but this afternoon I called your circulation offices and canceled my subscription. Perhaps the New York Times will take my money. 

Yours truly, 

Neal Madnick