Run, Forest, Run

Published September 21, 2013

by Gary Pearce, Talking About Politics, September 20, 2013.

I’m always looking for something nice to say about a Republican. But Dan Forest? Sorry, I’ve got to do it.

Monday, I posted a blog (Let Teachers Teach) saying we should pay teachers $100,000 a year. Then, on Wednesday, Lieutenant Governor Forest called for North Carolina to pay the nation's highest teaching salaries.  Asked whether North Carolina teachers should make more than $100,000 a year, Forest replied, "Why not? Why shouldn't' we do that?"

As Forrest Gump would say, “Lieutenant Dan!”

Asked where he’d find the $2 billion or so it would cost, Forest said: "I think there's plenty of money in government (already)," he said. "We'll figure out a way to do it. … I think we need to put our money where our mouth is."

Appearances to the contrary, I have no pipeline to the Lieutenant Governor. I don’t know why he said this. Maybe he’s looking to replace Governor McCrory in 2016. Or carve out some space from GOP orthodoxy. Or just get attention.

Whatever. Run, Forest, run.

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September 21, 2013 at 8:37 am
TP Wohlford says:

Can you PLEASE point to a place where the laws of supply and demand in the labor market are suspended, other than where unions use extortion to limit the supply of labor? Heck, can you even recognize a supply and demand graph, and if so, can you explain price equilibrium?

Can you PLEASE point to a place where performance and pay go hand in hand? No less than NPR has pointed out there is little connection between pay and performance!

I'm gonna call you out too. You, me, 1 mic, we debate. Give me a number... A NUMBER.. of just how much money is "enough." Right now this seems like a money and power grab, using students as pawns and hard-working teachers as your "useful idiots."

September 21, 2013 at 10:31 am
Richard Bunce says:

Mr. Pearce is just making points with his Democratic Party masters so he will be hired to consult on some future campaigns and/or government boondogles... making vastly more for even less value than the current government school system teachers. He would be just as happy to argue the other side... like the last several decades when the Democrats were the majority in the State government and did not pay teachers $100K.