With just a few days to go until the close of the NUT's latest ballot on teachers' pay, my message this issue is simple: If you have not already returned your ballot paper, please do so today! With media and political attention focused firmly on the difficulties currently faced by bankers and investors, it's easy to forget that teachers were facing financial problems long before the credit crunch started to bite, having suffered real-terms pay cuts every year since 2004.

Since the last edition of The Teacher, the government has spent £18bn of public money on nationalising the Bradford and Bingley, and committed an incredible £400bn to its bank rescue plan. Yet it can't find £1.5bn to restore teachers' living standard to 2004 levels. The government has long claimed that raising public sector workers' pay in line with infl ation would ruin the economy. So public sector workers have endured year after year of realterms pay cuts, only to see the economy implode anyway!

Paying teachers a decent wage would attract more bright, talented people into the profession, and keep them there. It would lessen recruitment and retention difficulties, thereby reducing workload and stress across the teaching workforce. In short, it would give children a better education, which would benefit society for years to come. Surely the government couldn't make a better investment of public money?