There are a few sure-fire ways to get the phone lines burning on a talk-radio show.

You can ask the following question: “That Barack Obama is sure doing a great job, isn’t he?”

He is, by the way. But we already wrote that column a couple of weeks ago.

You can make the following statement: “It’s about time we make it a lot tougher to buy guns in this country.”

It is, by the way. But we’ll save that column for another day.

Or you could say this: “Teachers are greatly undervalued and underappreciated in the United States. We should pay them more. A lot more.”

Boom! Watch the phone lines light up and wait for the vitriol from callers.

“THEY ONLY WORK NINE MONTHS A YEAR!”

“THESE PEOPLE ARE GLORIFIED DAY-CARE PROVIDERS!”

“THEY GET EVERY HOLIDAY OFF PLUS ALL THE VACATION TIME THE KIDS GET!”

Maybe it’s just talk-radio listeners. Maybe it’s just those who call into talk-radio shows. Or maybe they’re just a representative slice of the public in general. But somewhere along the line teachers became villains, or at least scoundrels, to a fair percentage of the population.

This was illustrated again last week when the topic of teacher tenure came up. A Minnesota legislator, a DFLer no less, again introduced a bill that would eliminate teacher tenure in public schools. The idea, at least as its being sold, is to give school boards more leeway when they need to make layoffs.

Supporters of the latest incarnation of the bill say its passage would allow school boards to weed out weak teachers, even if they have many years of experience. It’s all about the kids, they say. It’s a lie. The bill is a thinly disguised money-saving measure that would allow school boards to whack longer-serving, higher-paid teachers in order to keep less-experienced, lower-paid ones.

It’s a legitimate debate, even if the obvious solution is to protect teacher tenure at all costs. The stunning aspect of bringing up the topic on the radio is how quickly discussion turns to the privileged, money-for-nothing lives of public-school teachers.

Huh?

Exactly.

The narrative for many seems to be that teachers are overpaid, don’t work very hard and aren’t very good at what they do. Apparently for some, a salary ranging from $40,000 to $70,000 (the latter figure coming only with 20 years experience and an advanced degree) is just one step shy of Bill Gates money.

Nothing could be more silly, of course. Teachers are solidly middle class and, considering the job they have, are sadly shortchanged.

This is not meant to be a manifesto geared toward getting teachers bigger paychecks. But if you don’t see the important job they have, you’re not looking very closely.

Teachers have our children for eight hours a day, five days a week, nine months a year. During the school year, they probably spend more time with our kids than we do. They educate, counsel, protect, inspire, motivate, lead, engage, nurture, discipline … and a thousand other things. Every day.

Teachers are not perfect. Certainly some teachers are subpar. But we entrust our children to teachers every day and expect at the end of a dozen years that our kids are going to be ready for the big, bad world. And, most of the time, they are.

Villains? Heck, teachers are heroes. They should be treated accordingly.

A popular dig at teachers comes from those who view education as a cost, not the investment it is: “Those who can do, those who can’t teach.” It’s a way of devaluing teachers, as if educating students isn’t “doing.”

I prefer a teacher’s creed, which puts value where it should be: “A hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.”

(Mike McFeely is a talk-show host on 790 KFGO in Fargo-Moorhead. He can be heard 2-5 p.m. weekdays. Follow him on Twitter @MikeMcFeelyKFGO.)