The concept of comparable worth in the job marketplace — the principle that the public commonly but erroneously refers to as equal pay for equal work — has been given an intriguing new twist in Bangor, where police officers are asking for pay and benefit parity with teachers.

On the surface, it is an interesting question. Who is more valuable to a community, the people who keep society from coming unglued from disorder and violence, or the people who mold society’s future through the education process?

Given the training and education of modern municipal law-enforcement officers, who are far better prepared for their roles in the criminal justice system than were their predecessors, the answer is that neither teachers nor patrolmen can reasonably ask for a greater share of public support.

While the teacher is wearing down from the daily struggle to educate children from dysfunctional homes who are improperly clothed and fed and totally lacking in motivation, the police officer is called in to have nerves rubbed raw in midnight sessions as a middleman in domestic disputes in those same households.

In the course of their jobs, teachers see the best and the worst society has to offer. Police officers usually see only the worst. It comes with the turf.

But there is something unsettling in the comparable-pay-and-benefit argument being made by the Bangor police officers. It isn’t that they aren’t worth it. They are, every penny of wage and every dollar of medical coverage.

Theirs is a good comparison, but a bad tactic.

The police implicitly are asking the public, which already is on the verge of property tax revolt, to choose between people in two professions that are respected and indispensable. If forced, the public may make a choice, but there will be no winner.

Given the demands on these two very different but strikingly similar professions of equivalent value, the answer for the patrol officers lies in a long-term solution, not a short-term societal choice. Teachers accumulated their salary and benefit package through years of negotiation and compromise. It is unreasonable and unrealistic for police officers to expect to achieve instant parity in 1990.

The recent, rapid upward spiral in teachers’ pay will slow. Teachers eventually will be given the opportunity to work year-round to meet the changing demands of public education. Policemen with a long-range pay and benefit plan will catch up. That is in everyone’s interest.