Its about more than teacher salaries
Published January 29, 2014
by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, January 28, 2014.
Some teachers in North Carolina will get a raise next year. That seems like a foregone conclusion.
The questions now are how big the raise will be and which teachers will get it, how will Governor Pat McCrory and state lawmakers pay for it, and will they try to convince voters that increasing teacher pay by a few hundred dollars will make up for the deep cuts to education in the last several years?
McCrory talked about the teacher pay raise at his rambling news conference last week laying out his agenda for 2014. McCrory didn’t offer many details, other than to say he wanted to increase pay for starting teachers and come up with a way to pay the best teachers more, though he does not appear to have a plan in mind to evaluate teachers for prospective pay hikes.
The announcement comes as former Governor Jim Hunt is leading an effort to raise teacher pay to the national average, which seems like a good start.
North Carolina now ranks near the bottom of the 50 states and Virginia is openly recruiting North Carolina teachers to come across the border and earn more.
McCrory, despite his new found realization that teachers are underpaid, for some reason refused to endorse Hunt’s idea. Then later in the week Rep. Paul Stam issued a press release saying teachers could receive a raise this year if local school districts took advantage of flexibility lawmakers gave them and shifted money from other priorities—like helping at-risk kids—to pay teachers more.
McCrory hasn’t responded to Stam’s idea but it is a useful one, not as a public policy—it is a horrible plan—but as another reminder about what’s behind all this bluster about teacher pay from McCrory and his Republican colleagues currently running the General Assembly.
It is the same crowd that has slashed education funding across the board, from reducing the number of slots for NC Pre-K for at risk four-year-old to increasing class sizes and laying off teacher assistants to slashing funding for textbooks to obscenely low levels.
Textbooks cost from $35 to $85 per book, hard copy or digital. The budget passed by Stam and his fellow state lawmakers and signed by Governor McCrory provides a total of $15 per student for textbooks, less than half the cost of one book.
Classroom support for teachers has been cut too and so has funding for supplies. In 2011, state lawmakers created a state tax credit for teachers who were forced to buy supplies themselves, a remarkable admission that the state is not adequately funding public school classrooms.
The tax credit was repealed in the regressive tax shift passed last year, a signal that while they admit classrooms are underfunded, they would rather slash taxes on the wealthy and out of state corporations than do something about it.
Despite the talking points from the Right claiming otherwise, Governor McCrory and state lawmakers overall spent $100 million less this year on education than was needed to keep schools funded at the same level as last year.
Funding for public schools is down more than $500 million since 2007-2008 when adjusted for inflation. Classes are bigger, many teacher assistants are gone, support for teachers and students has been reduced.
Then there is the ill-advised end to career status for teachers and the insulting plan to give $500 bonuses to the top 25 percent of teachers in a school, a proposal that several school districts are rejecting because the damage from dividing a school far outweighs giving a little more money to a handful of teachers.
And to top it off, Stam and his colleagues also created a sketchy voucher scheme last year to divert money from public schools to almost completely unaccountable private and religious academies, many of which openly discriminate against gay students and teach bizarre fundamentalist theories about history and the age of the earth.
Add it all up and it’s hard not to get the feeling that the folks currently in charge in Raleigh are more worried about the public outrage about teacher salaries than actually helping the public school teachers who deserve to make more money.
Otherwise, state leaders would stop their crusade to dismantle public education and drop ridiculous ideas like raising teacher pay on the backs of at-risk kids.
Teachers need and deserve a raise—and a sizable one. Reaching the national average ought to be the floor not the ceiling.
But teachers and students also need and deserve state leaders dedicated to making sure public schools have the resources they need to do their jobs. They need real investments, not cynical political gestures.
January 29, 2014 at 9:25 am
Richard Bunce says:
It is only about parents and their children having access to a school system that the majority of it's students are proficient in basic skills... that is not the government schools systems. A story Chris will never write about.
January 29, 2014 at 10:57 am
Norm Kelly says:
I've just started reading Chris's editorial. I'm only 1 or 2 paragraphs into it. Already it's possible to draw some conclusions.
The first question is one that I predicted libs would ask but didn't expect it this soon. How big will the raise be? Even before the topic is considered by the NCGA, libs are setting the expectation that it won't be enough. Doesn't matter how big the raise is, how much money it translates into for teachers, libs anticipate and want their base to believe it's not enough.
The very next thought is that no matter how much the raise is, it won't compensate for the 'deep cuts' of the last several years. Everyone needs to remember that for the majority of the 'last several years' that Chris and all other libs talk about were controlled by libs. It was the Democrat party that failed to give teachers raises for the majority of the 'last several years'. The Republicans in Raleigh not only have to make up for 'the last several years' of Demon leadership cuts, but also go beyond that to a big enough extent to prove to all libs that the teachers & public education are NOT despised by Republicans. And libs are laying the ground work early to make sure their base, including the teachers, are prepared to protest regardless of how big or small the adjustment is.
Of course, in that very same thought, Chris points out that Republicans actually CUT education in their budget. Further proof that Republicans despise public education. Except Republicans DIDN'T cut the education budget.
What's more, those of us who were and continue to be opposed to the state venture into gambling remember that Gov Mike promised that the lottery would solve all the states financial problems. Gov Mike promised that the influx of money into education would overwhelm the system with cash to the point that we wouldn't have to hear about the 'cuts to education' ever again. Go back & listen to some of the words used by Gov Mike to convince all of us that the 'education lottery' would be a boon for the state. The only thing Gov Mike didn't say would be fixed by the 'education lottery' was snow on the roads. That's the one thing he didn't claim would be fixed. Other than this, Gov Mike tried to convince us that the lottery was a boon and wouldn't cost the state anything. It was all going to be soooo good for the state. So good in fact that ALL private competition to state gambling MUST be eliminated.
Slashing education budgets was & is a DEMOCRAT problem. Who started cutting back on teacher aids? Who started asking questions about the 'more at 4' and 'pre-K' programs, and other programs aimed at 'at-risk' kids? There are a lot of challenges with kids coming to school unprepared. The parents MUST accept some responsibility here. Poor people qualify for day care subsidies so the parent(s) are able to work. Aren't these day care facilities 'controlled' by the state? Doesn't the state have regulations in place requiring day care facilities to do some basic prep for school? If the parents can't afford to stay home with their kids and start the basic early education indoctrination, then why aren't these kids getting what they need at the subsidized day care facilities? Instead of smart start kids programs being in addition to subsidized day care facilities, how about the state combine the 2 programs into one. Could this possibly save some money AND better prepare kids for school? And when it comes to which kids get labeled 'at risk', isn't there room for interpretation as to who is and who isn't? Doesn't there need to be some guideline in place to determine this other than household income level? There are better, more efficient ways to spend state dollars (tax payer provided funds!) than to continue to add more programs for 'at risk' kids. There are already programs in place that do NOT need to be duplicated. Smart start kids was already in place when Gov Mike forced pre-k on us. Duplication of programs for the simple result of getting Mike labeled the 'education governor'. How successful is this duplication of programs? We ARE NOT supposed to examine results, simply examine the 'effort'. Just ask any lib. They'll tell you that the effort is commendable, but they NEVER look at the result because that could prove their 'theory' wrong and libs are NEVER wrong. Just ask them.
Teacher pay is NOT the be-all-end-all. There is definitely more to the equation than simply paying teachers more. The constant lib call to simply spend more on education is NOT the answer. If spending more were the answer, then we'd have extremely smart kids coming out of our public school system. If not in NC, then in the states where teacher pay exceeds the national average for education spending. When was the last time libs took a serious look at other options in big education than teacher pay? When was the last time the education establishment admitted that the system was top heavy? When was the last time that big education admitted that paying superintendents outrageous sums, having huge school districts with many layers of administration, having a ridiculous number of administrators in the system when compared to the number of in-class teachers could be an issue? When was the last time that big education admitted that they don't always consider the cost of their operations when they make decisions? Take Wake County as a perfect example. Not an example of what's right but an example of the education establishment taking advantage of tax payers. When the demon majority of the Board of Ed disagreed with, disliked the superintendent, they simply terminated his contract. It cost us tax payers HUGE MONEY to take this step, but the politicians in charge didn't seem to care. It seems that to them, it's just money, and they can always get more. Instead of spending that money on teachers, assistants, books, whatever, they decided it was more important to have a leader they could 'believe' in. What the heck does that mean?
The headline of this editorial has it right. Doesn't seem the content agrees with the headline though. It really, actually, truly is about more than teacher pay. It's about every other aspect of spending by the education establishment as well. It's about libs objection to ANY alternative to big education. It's about libs CONSTANT, NEVER ENDING diatribe about insufficient teacher pay. Libs first, most loudly proclaimed, most often repeated concern about the education establishment has nothing to do with results, it has everything to do with teacher pay. It MAY be true that teachers are underpaid. But what else is wrong with the education establishment? If government can come in and regulate the size of my soda, can regulate how much table salt I am allowed to use at a restaurant, then why is it bad for me to ask what's wrong with big education that we can fix? I'm accused of hating the kids, hating teachers, hating government schools, but my questions are ignored because the people who only complain about teacher pay have no other answer. Why is it that the most educated among us are so unable to come up with any other educated answer? Any alternative to the education establishment must first be stomped out, then the libs will answer any questions. Stomp first, pay second, then we'll see about other things that could be done with the education establishment. Maybe. But we make no promises. Unless we make promises with our fingers crossed behind our backs. Eliminate alternatives, trap kids in schools that may not be the one chosen by parents, then big education MIGHT consider our questions. But only maybe.
