Supporting teachers or blaming them
Published August 25, 2013
by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch, August 22, 2013.
There are some very clear lines being drawn in the current education debate in North Carolina and the battle is not just about whether the General Assembly actually increased funding for education this year or slashed it.
For the record again, the budget passed by the General Assembly this year spends $117 million less than the state budget office said was needed to keep education services at the same level as last year. And it spends $562 million less than was spent on public schools in 2008 when adjusted for inflation.
You don’t need to know those numbers to understand the cuts. Every day continues to bring more stories from local school systems about teacher assistant layoffs, larger class sizes, and less money for supplies.
And as Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson pointed out this week, textbooks cost between $35 and $86 dollars each, yet the budget provides schools with a total of only $15 per student for books.
But the debate is no longer a numbers dispute. It’s about public education itself and more specifically the teachers in the classrooms.
A column by Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger is appearing in newspapers across the state blasting critics of the education budget as dishonest and saying that members of the N.C Association of Educators are only interested in “money for their union members” and “lining their own pockets.”
Another Republican Senator wrote hatefully of “educrats” misrepresenting the facts about the budget. A long and overheated rebuttal to criticisms of the budget that is posted on many lawmakers’ cookie-cutter websites says that teachers shouldn’t complain about their low salary because they get health care benefits and summers off.
The tone is unmistakable. Some of the folks now running things in Raleigh believe teachers are the problem, even the enemy, and ought to stop complaining that they are paid less than their counterparts in almost every other state.
Never mind that it takes 15 years for a teacher to make $40,000 a year or that they have more students in their classes and less support in their schools. Their whining is the problem.
The other side of the debate, the one appalled by the deep cuts to public education, sees teachers differently, as valuable and underappreciated and underpaid public servants doing one of the most important jobs in the state under increasingly difficult conditions.
There are numerous columns and letters to the editors by teachers, administrators, and supporters of public schools pointing that out every day in their local papers. And there are news accounts too, like a story in USA Today this week about Hannah Martin, a second year teacher in Wake County who makes $34,000 a year and takes as many babysitting jobs as she can to buy supplies for her class. Lining her own pockets she is not.
Martin’s story is hardly unique. Teachers in every school district are buying classroom supplies, scrambling to help more students because they lost their teacher assistant, and figuring out ways to cover course material when all their students don’t even have a textbook to follow along.
Their reward for their dedication and resilience is no pay raises, a shift to temporary contracts and an end to a pay supplement if they continue their education and earn a master’s degree.
If you believe that the teachers in your local schools are the problem and only interested in lining their own pockets, you are likely to agree with Senator Berger and be happy with what the General Assembly and Governor McCrory have done this year.
If you believe in the teachers trying to help your children and value their hard work every day, you are almost certainly upset at the cuts to public schools that are making teachers’ jobs more difficult.
It’s not that complicated really. You either support teachers or you don’t. Senator Berger and his colleagues clearly do not.
August 25, 2013 at 7:50 am
Richard Bunce says:
As long as the government education industrial complex is in control of the government school systems in NC then we will continue to get the majority of students reading below grade level and waste every dollar spent on government schools. Free parents to send their children to quality schools of their choice. The government education industrial complex is all about feeding the school system not the education of the students to the satisfaction of the schools customers, the students parents. The government education industrial complex views students as merely a number in the funding formula.
August 25, 2013 at 9:27 am
Al Bouldin says:
The Republicans in the General Assembly are not "anti-teacher" and promoting such a ridiculous notion is simply being dishonest in order to promote a political agenda. First, the budget actually called for an INCREASE in spending on K-12 education (just not as large of an increase as the liberals wanted...this is NOT "slashing education funding".
It is time to get rid of the extreme salaries of the Central Office "bosses" who never step foot in a classroom. We DO need to spend more money on quality teachers and on improving the quality of education IN THE CLASSROOM. However, the liberals are too busy just blindly throwing money at the problem instead of actually looking for solutions. They want to protect under-performing teachers with tenure instead of allowing great teachers to be rewarded and lifted up as examples of how to help our children to learn & succeed.
I am PROUD of the many education innovations that the NC General Assembly has passed. I encourage ALL who agree with my comments to call or write your NC representatives and senators to thank them for not bowing to the "business as usual" pressure from the left. I would also like to thank Marcus Brandon (D-Guilford County) and a few other common-sense Democrats for breaking with the "party line" and actually voted for some of these reforms.
It is time for legislators to stop the partisan bickering and actually start WORKING to make the lives of the people that they were elected to represent BETTER. Thank you Governor McCrory for being a shining example of that type of leadership here in NC. I have never been more proud to be a resident of the great state of North Carolina!
August 25, 2013 at 10:54 am
dj anderson says:
Chris's pitch is this: "Some of the folks now running things in Raleigh believe teachers are the problem, even the enemy, and ought to stop complaining that they are paid less than their counterparts in almost every other state."
That's spin, clever as Chris is, but wrong, well, unless you remove "teachers" and use "NCAE" instead.
The Republicans are putting pressure on the NCAE to start supporting republicans, not just democrats. The NCAE has a political arm that gives money and time to Democrats. That was fine when Democrats ran everything. Now, the NCAE is going to have to stop existing for the good of Democrats and start acting to get teachers more money.
Chris is an operative of the Democratic machine, the most effective one, but this is a losing battle for either Democrats or teachers. If teachers want raises, then woo the Republican majority as a single issue voter -- 100,000 teachers vote and teacher are in every county. Teachers are going to change the republicans by joining them on this pay issue, not by wearing a color on the mall.
Teachers must shape legislation. One, pay must be their #1 goal.
Two, teachers must recognize that the public wants accountability and pay based on performance as objectively measured by testing, so, first went tenure protection, and next will go the pay steps, ending increased pay by longevity so teachers can make more sooner, with all teachers eligible. Second, the making more for having a masters or doctorate will turn upside down, so that if advanced degrees increases skills, which increase performance, then the increased pay will follow performance, not the degree. The public doesn't accept as fact that a 63yo teacher with 40 years experience is worth 50% more than a 33 yo teacher with 10 years experience. The outcomes for young students is going to be placed above the incomes of old teachers. Also coming is pay differential by subject demand. PE teachers might not make as much as high school physics and higher math teachers due to supply/demand. High school English teachers of college bound students have a heavy workload in grading papers and teaching challenges and must be superior to their students, for example. I'll add that the current habit of paying administrators more than teachers is not based on time, and will likely be addressed. Show me an inadequate teacher in the classroom and I'll show you an administrator down the hall that needs to be replaced with one that will replace the teacher. Show me a principal that permits weak teaching and I'll show you a central office supervisor that needs to be replaced.
Smart, energetic teachers are going to realize they can make more by teaching better than teachers who are satisfied with being average. This division among teachers is highly resisted by the unity sought by the current NCAE thinking, and there probably needs to be new leadership in place, with new thinking.
The Democratic Party can't afford to lose the NCAE. Republicans are waiting with pay rewards for teachers if they start working with, not against Republicans. Will the Democratic Party change agenda and start supporting popular initiatives such as vouchers, popular charter schools, increased teacher pay based on performance, etc? Can the Democratic party change? I think the NCAE will change by working with, not against the Republican majority to get what teachers want. Neither the Democrats nor the teachers can want a return to the static past and be successful.
Want to change the ruling Republican party? Do it from within not from without.
August 25, 2013 at 8:59 pm
Cheryl Smith says:
Isn't it a shame that education has to be ruled by politicians (Democrats vs. Republicans)? Isn't it time everyone works together? Have we not seen this state and country fall to an all time low in approval ratings simply because no one can do what is best or right for it's citizens.
Yes teachers work 10 months but they don't get paid for 12. Many have to take money out each month to subsidize the summer months or else get another job.
I don't think our legislators will have to worry too much longer about teachers. The best ones are planning on getting out, asap. Look for a mass exodus in the next few year. Things will get much worse until teachers and administrators are compensated fairly. Do legislators know what the word "fair" means? Compare how much they work compared to their salaries. I read where it was 7.5 months for $110,000. Wow! And no I wouldn't be a politician for any amount of money. I'd want to work with everyone...I'd be the only one. No one cares about democratic or republican parties. They just want to see progress. The political parties have outlived their usefulness these days. In other words, they are worthless.
Teachers may complain, but I dare say I know none that don't do the job they were hired to do and more. Can we say that about our legislators? Not this year I'm afraid. Or at least that is the perception....and perception is everything.
August 26, 2013 at 9:43 am
TP Wohlford says:
The truth is that education outcomes are a product of the environment / community. If the community valued education, and are themselves trained in what it takes to achieve high academic results, then you will have a good outcome. Conversely, if little Johnny gets beaten up for carrying books and "acting smart", if little Janie gets yanked from home to home as mom gets new boyfriends, nothing good will happen.
Nothing that fails to change the community will enhance outcomes. More pay, no unions, STEM (and Open Concept before it), school schedules, giving computers to every student, No Child... the list of failures and will-be failures is long, because none of it changes the attitudes of the community.
Therefore, this uproar is a proxy battle by Dems for votes and power. Teachers generally are not politically savvy, and if they're told that they might get a pay cut, they'll say whatever they're told to say (and yes, teachers have told me that). It's sad that we are at this point, but that is where we are.
August 26, 2013 at 1:32 pm
Richard Bunce says:
Government education industrial complex goals laid bare... more money for administrators and teachers... no alternatives to government schools... nothing about actually educating students to the satisfaction of the schools customers, the students parents.
August 25, 2013 at 10:29 pm
TP Wohlford says:
I would pay attention to the NC teacher's concerns, but I've lived through this twice in Michigan, and once in Wisconsin. What was the common event with those 3 events, and today's NC? Well, they got a Republican Gov and a Republican legislature, and the teacher's union threw a hissy fit.
Mind you, it's the same fit. The same tactics. The same. Exact. Thing.
Kinda like people copied off of another guy's term paper....
BTW, given the projections, next year will see actual cuts. Not cuts in projections, actual cuts. And that would happen no matter who is in power (kinda like the Dems cut ed in Chicago and Massachusetts).
August 27, 2013 at 5:20 pm
Tom Hauck says:
Mr. Fitzsimon speaks about the $86 textbook as if that is the normal cost of a book.
Why do not we hear about who is benefiting from the state spending $26 million in the 2011 -12 year buying textbooks costing $86.13 for a high school reader or a $84.56 middle school reader or $44.14 elementary school math book. The least expensive textbook was an elementary school reader costing $35.42. Go Facts and Figures 2012 -2013 at www.ncpublicschools.org
The sad part is -- we pay that much for textbooks but 20% of the children do not graduate from high school and 60% of those who do graduate need remedial work to stay in a community college.
According to the NC Department of Public Safety
34% of the 2011 prison admissions tested from 0 to 6th grade for reading.
Is anyone opening those over $80 reading textbooks?
August 27, 2013 at 11:18 pm
Richard Bunce says:
No but the government education industrial complex is cashing the checks for those over $80 reading books.
