Yes, Lt. Gov. Forest, teachers do need more money
Published September 25, 2013
Editorial by Winston-Salem Journal, September 25, 2013.
Lt. Gov. Dan Forest drew attention to himself last week for telling conservative support-ers in Greensboro that North Carolina should have the nation’s highest paid teachers.
But recognizing his audience, he quickly added no tax increase would be needed. Budget cuts could fund the raises.
According to state figures, there are approximately 95,000 state-paid public-school teachers in our 2,526 public and charter schools. They earn an average of $45,938 a year, rank-ing 46th in the country, approximately $10,000 below the national average.
But our average is almost $27,500 below New York’s, the nation’s highest, according to the National Education Association. So if Forest proposed matching New York’s average salaries over the decade, the state would need more than $2.6 billion for teacher-salary increases alone. That represents more than 10 percent of the current state budget.
And our calculation doesn’t include principals, assistant principals, the teacher aides who are still working and other professionals such as librarians and counselors. They deserve raises, too.
Nor does it include teachers in our community colleges and universities, nor the thou-sands of state employees – like prison guards and highway patrolmen -- who will need raises, too.
Of course, over the next decade, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut, states that pay their teachers the highest salaries, won’t be standing still. They’ll be raising teacher salaries, too.
That $2.6 billion target looks mighty low, considering all of that.
Nonetheless, we applaud Forest for his concern and for shooting for the moon. It’s nice to see a prominent Republican politician who, like the 80 percent of North Carolinians recently surveyed by Elon University, feels that teachers are poorly paid.
Now that he’s initiated this idea, Forest should come forth with a realistic, short-term proposal to get a significant raise for our teachers, one-ninth of whom make the starting wage of only $30,800, according to the state Board of Education.
First in the nation may not be realistic, or even necessary given our cost of living. But significantly better than 46th is essential.
September 25, 2013 at 1:37 pm
TP Wohlford says:
Please explain to me the economic term "deserve". Because I might be the worst BA-Econ to ever graduate from my college, and I do not recall the word "deserve" in any study of the market for labor.
Let me explain it in terms you can understand....
Jane Coed is a bright, hard-working person who can write. She enrolls in a good J-school, and graduates with a degree in communications. Does she "deserve" a job, a good paying job?
The problem is that newspapers, radio stations and the like don't need very many people like Jane, and the demand is soft, right? And to make matters worse, Jane is a communications grad, which is about as plentiful as the lab rats over in the bio lab -- meaning that there is wayyyy too much supply, right?
So what happens to Jane's wages? Do we give her what she "deserves", or do YOU, the editor, pay her what her market value is?
The last I checked, the market for labor was like that for any other commodity -- subject to the Law of Supply and Demand. You know -- if there are lots of people who can do something, then the supply forces the wages down. And if there is a strong demand for that task then the wages go up, all other things being equal.
So explain to me again about this word "deserve." I await your econ 101 lecture.
The last I checked, the market for labor was like that for any other commodity -- subject to the Law of Supply and Demand. You know -- if there are lots of people who can do something, then the supply forces the wages down? And if there is a strong demand for that task then the wages go up, all other things being equal?
