GOP: Teacher crisis started before McCrory
Published April 21, 2014
by Heather Waliga, ABC11 WTVD, April 18, 2014.
Wake County Republicans blame teacher resignations on Governor Pat McCrory's predecessors.
Both sides agree teachers need a pay raise, but when it comes to why they haven't had one in five years -- and why teachers are leaving -- Republicans say they aren't to blame.
One day after Wake County schools revealed more than 600 teachers quit mid-year (a 41 percent increase over last year), a chart compiled by the Wake County Republican Party shows teacher salaries dropped nearly 15 percent since 2008, mostly under the leadership of former governor Bev Perdue.
"If that had not happened prior to last year, would we be seeing all this?" questioned Donna Williams, chairwoman of the Wake County Republican Party.
Republicans also blame the state's $2 billion Medicaid debt for halting teacher raises.
"I look at our current legislators and our current governor as being responsible, paying our bills and then we go forward," Williams said. "And to have done that and still increase education spending by $361 million -- that's pretty incredible."
But education advocates said that increase wasn't nearly enough to cover the increase in students last year -- an increase of 17,000 statewide. Classroom sizes increased, per student spending decreased, and teacher turnover reached 14 percent.
"The General Assembly and the governor could have afforded to give every public school worker a significant pay raise had they chosen not to implement a voucher plan and not to roll back taxes for millionaires and flat tax corporations," said Mark Jewell, vice president of the North Carolina Association of Educators.
While the teacher pay issue grows more political, Wake County school leaders fear employees will continue to leave before lawmakers can come up with a pay raise that will keep them in the classroom.
"Sadly, I think this is the tip of the iceberg," Jewell said.
Governor McCrory has proposed boosting salaries for starting teachers over the next couple of years, but there are no concrete plans for pay raises for veteran teachers. The General Assembly will consider the issue of teacher salaries when it meets next month.
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=9508951
April 21, 2014 at 8:37 am
TPWohlford says:
Well, yes... This isn't a "Dem" or "GOP" thing.
But education, being the second largest chunk of change that our State Legislature actually controls (Corrections is probably the largest) it is a great football. And teachers make great useful idiots, and our children such wonderful political props.
For the record, there is "NOT" a teacher shortage. Most field are overwhelmed with would-be teachers. Where you have a shortage are places where no one wants to go.
April 21, 2014 at 8:16 pm
LWGracie says:
I wish this debate was based on data and not emotions.
I regret that someone would want "would-be teachers" to be instructors in our educational system. This shortage reminds me of the Nursing/Medical professional shortage of years ago when we had more RNs selling real estate because of salaries and working conditions.
These are complex issues.
It appears that "job creation" must be working with this exit of educational employees and I wonder who will take credit for these changes.
I will agree that Education is in a poor position since it has never been successful in defining (quantifying) good teachers and designing appropriate rewards systems. The lateral transfer into education as a profession has had limited success.
These shortages were predictable when at one time the number of vacant positions of NC public K-12 classroom instruction exceeded the aggregated number of enrollees in our regional teacher preparation programs. This may be simple math for a complex issue.
Finally, the priority of the Medicaid fix (2003) and prison expenses are problems of priorities that illustrate a failure to use data in solving social problems. These are complex problems!
