Teacher appreciation needs to be reflected in the budget
Published May 6, 2015
by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, May 5, 2015.
This is National Teacher Week, a time set aside to appreciate the men and women who work hard every day in what almost everyone agrees is one of the most important jobs in our society, helping kids acquire the knowledge and skills and the ability to think critically that they need to realize their full potential in life.
Teachers in North Carolina will find out soon how much the folks running the state these days appreciate them, as House leaders prepare to unveil their budget in the next few weeks. And if the speculation and conventional wisdom are true, teachers ought to enjoy this week because there’s not a lot of good news on the way from the General Assembly.
Governor Pat McCrory’s budget is the benchmark for lawmakers and his plan fulfills a promise to raise starting teacher pay to $35,000 a year but only gives a third of teachers a raise. Last year’s much ballyhooed pay increase gave some teachers significant pay hikes but left many veteran teachers with barely a raise at all.
That means that many teachers in North Carolina have seen their pay stay basically the same for the last eight years, no matter how hard they worked, no matter how much larger their classes became and no matter how many cuts they endured in classroom supplies, textbooks and professional support.
North Carolina teacher pay now ranks 42nd in the country, a slight improvement over the year before but still disgracefully low. A recent NEA report showed that teacher pay in North Carolina dropped 17 percent between 2003-2004 to 2013-2014 when you adjust for inflation—and it dropped for every teacher, not just the ones that McCrory and lawmakers selected for increases last year or that McCrory is proposing get a raise in his latest budget.
Teachers are vastly underpaid and that’s beyond dispute. The starting pay for a teacher—even including McCrory’s plan to raise starting salaries—is below the range for an entry level administrative position currently open at the Department of Public Safety.
The top of the salary range for the administrative position is more than most teachers will ever make in their careers. Teachers may be an important job in the rhetoric of politicians but not when they put their budgets together.
And appreciation is not all about money of course. In the last few years public school teachers have been demonized, disrespected and denounced as lawmakers moved to end supplements for advanced degrees, end career status protections, and funneled taxpayer money to private and religious schools with virtually no standards or requirements for teachers to meet.
Teachers at public schools with high percentages of low-income students are now branded as failures under the state’s new simplistic and punitive A-F grading system and a bill making its way through the General Assembly limits the political activities of teachers.
An official with the American Enterprise Institute—a favorite national think tank of the folks running the General Assembly—made the insulting claim at event at NC State this week that one in eight teachers is a bad one and then blamed teachers for allowing that to be true.
And then there are the budget cuts to the classrooms and to support services for struggling children and the firing of teacher assistants so valuable to teachers in the early grades.
House Speaker Tim Moore tweeted Tuesday in recognition of National Teacher Week that “teachers do an extraordinary service to our state.”
He’s right. They do. And the best place to show appreciation to teachers is in the budget that sets their salaries and provides the funding for the support they need to educate the children who show up in their classrooms every day.
Let’s celebrate National Teacher Week, absolutely. Then more importantly, let’s see a state budget that actually supports and values teachers and public schools.
May 6, 2015 at 11:25 am
Richard L Bunce says:
Teacher appreciation is reflected in the traditional government school system assessment scores... majority of students not proficient at basic skills.
Chris is always up for government employee compensation increases... as long as he does not have to pay for it. You know who isn't grousing about pay... teachers in alternative schools. Comparing one government employee salary to another government employee salary is pointless when they are both overpaid based on the value they provide. So is comparing the 50 States... Chris has not figured out that no matter what some State will still be 50th.
This simple fix is attached government school funding to the child and let teachers decide which successful schools are funded and which failed schools are not... government education bureaucrats in Raleigh and DC obviously do not care about the student education results... as long as everybody in the traditional government school system is getting paid more.
May 6, 2015 at 12:45 pm
Rip Arrowood says:
" majority of our students not proficient at basic skills" is an untrue generalization.
Provide proof.
May 7, 2015 at 9:53 am
Richard L Bunce says:
I have provided you with the traditional government school assessment results on numerous occasions when you questioned this... how about Judge Manning...
http://www.ncspin.com/manning-asks-officials-tough-questions/
May 8, 2015 at 12:01 pm
Rip Arrowood says:
And on the numerous occasions you have provided that one, single, cherry picked report you rely on to make your assessment I have shown that there are PLENTY of other assessments out there that contradict the ONE report you rely on.
NC public school students are on par with or above the national average.
May 9, 2015 at 10:09 am
Richard L Bunce says:
I see you failed to acknowledge Judge Manning's comments... something the government education industrial complex will do at it's peril... you are their canary in the coal mine. Being on par with the other 49 States failed traditional government school systems is faint praise indeed.
... and still when given a real choice of an alternate education system for their children many parents eagerly take it.
May 9, 2015 at 10:11 am
Richard L Bunce says:
... and I should not leave out one of the top per student spenders in the list of shame, Washington DC.
May 6, 2015 at 8:01 pm
Norm Kelly says:
And every time one of us says anything about how much money is spent on education, some lib always responds with 'it's not always about the money'. Yet what is the one, consistent, constant whine from libs? It's ALL about the money!
When libs ruled Raleigh, did they EVER give government monopoly schools what they wanted? Or were schools shorted on occasion? Can anyone tell us when the last ACTUAL cut to education spending was in this state? Wasn't it when libs ruled Raleigh? Will we hear anything except whining from libs this budget cycle? I won't hold my breath!
May 8, 2015 at 12:04 pm
Richard L Bunce says:
Progressives love this sort of chart to put down our healthcare system, we spend more than any other developed nation and get the worst results they say...
I wonder why they never say that about the traditional government education system spending level and results...
http://mercatus.org/publication/k-12-spending-student-oecd
May 7, 2015 at 9:07 am
Curt Budd says:
Mr. Kelly and Mr. Bunce why must you continue to show such disrespect for the teaching profession? What happened in your educational upbringing that was so bad that you continually devalue the role of teacher in our future generations? This is the same lack of respect that is shown by the current legislation. The attitude that comes across, is that of "anyone could do it."
I am sure there are a few bad apples out there, as there would be in any profession with the volume of members like that of teaching. However, the VAST majority of people that I work around and come into contact with, give everything they have, time, passion, emotion, money, etc into trying to do the best they can to teach their respective students each day.
First, you keep making the statement, "majority of students not proficient at basic skills" which I have shown you on this forum before is an outright false statement. Then, if you wanted me to really dig into the data, I could show you where it's even more misleading. Secondly, even if I play along with your false statement, you imply that it must be all the teacher's fault that these scores are low. And finally, and this is the part that really baffles me, your solution is, "since scores are low, meaning teachers are bad, lets not pay them a fair wage, because anybody can do it." What?? "Somebody has to be 50th" is your solution?
If you want to continue to debate vouchers, I will. It's a debate worth having. And I will even support your "govt monopoly" fixation if you want to talk about cutting administrative waste. But your bashing of the teaching profession is misguided and uncalled for. I witness first hand every day the hard work and passion being put in and I will not let you make statements on this forum to the contrary.
May 8, 2015 at 11:59 am
Richard L Bunce says:
I am always interested when the traditional government school proponents admit when they are not up to the job at hand... I do not either explicitly or implicitly claim it is all the teachers fault... it is the traditional government school systems as run by the government education industrial complex or which government employees aka teachers are an important element of the failed system.
I find that many parents find teachers in ALL education systems that are teaching their children to their satisfaction. Why do you disrespect teachers NOT in traditional government schools? Most importantly why do you disrespect the parents of the children who are the students you claim to be so concerned about?
A parent provided the resources to send their child to the school the parents believes will give their child the best education possible does not harm the traditional government school system in any way. As structured in NC the school voucher only pays roughly half of the average student cost in traditional government schools so one less student but still keeping ~50% of the revenue for that student increases the per student revenue for that school. The alternate schools do not get a dime until a parent decides to send their child to it... lets make that the rule for traditional government schools as wll, 100% of their funding tied to a student that attends it.
May 8, 2015 at 12:06 pm
Richard L Bunce says:
http://www.ncspin.com/manning-asks-officials-tough-questions/
May 11, 2015 at 2:45 pm
Curt Budd says:
Wait, I thought your argument was charter schools could do more with less??
wahttp://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20150510/ARTICLES/150519986/-1/editorial?Title=Darrell-Allison-Equitable-funding-needed-for-charter-schoolss
May 11, 2015 at 5:48 pm
Richard L Bunce says:
"The education vouchers for parents to select government school alternatives is roughly half of per student funding of government school systems in the State and still there are more parents with children asking for the voucher than there are vouchers being allocated. That says a lot about the state of government education in our State."
I think the funding should be attached to the child and go to the school that the child attends... overall that would result in lower State and Local government education spending/taxation. My point was even with half the per student funding of traditional government schools parents still want those vouchers... says a lot about the traditional government schools.
