Statistics not relevant here

To the editor:The op-ed column from The Wall Street Journal entitled "$34.06 an hour" begs a response. This article is appropriate for publication in the Journal. One generally assumes the audience of the Journal to be mostly metropolitan. The National Compensation Survey is heavily weighted toward metropolitan areas. It takes its samples from primarily metropolitan areas and uses a method called probability proportional to employment size. If you understand that institutions with greater employment stand a much greater chance of being used to find the average, thank a math teacher. The odds of a school district the size of Scott City or Perryville or even Jackson showing up in this statistical analysis are quite small. Therefore, the "wage" of $34.06 is the average of large school districts. It really isn't relevant to our area. Nonetheless, I'm sure that Speak Out will be filled with comments about teachers making entirely too much money.

Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. Winters would have done well to mention the methodology of the survey.

MARK KOEHLER, Cape Girardeau