Last month marked the beginning of the end for public education in North Carolina when the General Assembly passed a budget that would strip over half a billion dollars from our state’s already cash-strapped school systems.
Lawmakers were quick to take to Twitter, Facebook and their media mouthpieces, saying they actually raised the budget slightly from last year. But it was nothing more than deceptive spin, as their numbers don’t take into account adjustments for inflation or the steady stream of new students pouring into our schools. The truth is, state legislators have sent a strong message with this budget: North Carolina — once highly regarded for its emphasis on education — no longer gives a damn.
It no longer gives a damn about its teachers. The new budget eviscerates important incentives for teachers, doing away with pay raises, phasing out tenure and eliminating the salary boost for educators with advanced degrees. Our state already ranks dead last in teacher salary growth. I find it hard to believe any educator — much less the “best and brightest,” whose classrooms we all hope our children land in each year — would stay here now. During the House floor debate, Rep. Rick Glazier, D-Cumberland, dubbed this budget “No Teacher Left Standing,” which is exactly what we’re about to see as teachers migrate to neighboring states, such as Virginia and Tennessee, where salaries start tens of thousands of dollars higher and classrooms are half the size.
North Carolina no longer gives a damn about its children. Instructional supplies have been cut 14 percent, despite schools already having a severe textbook shortage and virtually no textbooks that support the newly implemented Common Core curriculum. Classroom size is increasing while the number of teacher assistants is decreasing. Teacher assistants give vital one-on-one attention to students — everything from extra help with lessons to monitoring activities.
Funding for repair and replacement of school buses has been dropped by $30 million. Many school districts, including my child’s, already have their buses doing double duty — transporting middle school and high school children together — because they lack enough buses to transport them exclusively. As more buses fall into disrepair, will they be forced to group kindergartners with sophomores?
There is one place our lawmakers are willing to spend money — private education. Beginning in 2014, $10 million will be siphoned from public education and given to parents who’d like to enroll their children in private schools. Hey, that’ll be every parent now, right? Well, sorry. With a $4,200 allotment per student, only about 2,380 students out of 1.5 million in the state will receive the vouchers. Funding could rise to $40 million in the voucher program’s second year, if it follows the funding plan laid out in the original proposition of the bill.
But the most troubling part of the vouchers program is that it offers nothing in the way of oversight. There is no accountability for private schools receiving these public funds. Plus, in other states that have enacted similar legislation, results have been horrendous.
In Florida, the state gave millions of taxpayer dollars to swindlers who set up “private schools” and preyed on low-income church-goers, having them request voucher funds from the state to send their kids to a rented strip-mall space filled with lawn chairs. No lesson plans, no certified teachers and no textbooks. Students were abused by physical discipline practices that had been outlawed in Florida’s public school system for years. Some school administrators were convicted of stealing their students’ identities and one student died when a 17-year-old with a learner’s permit was driving his school bus.
So far, there is nothing in North Carolina’s version of the vouchers program that would prevent these same types of incidents from taking place here. Why? Because the state doesn’t give a damn.
Why are the same lawmakers who refused federal dollars to expand Medicaid, eviscerated insurance for the unemployed, and sought to treat food stamp and welfare applicants like common criminals, willing to socialize private schooling with no oversight, even with historical evidence showing it’s a terrible idea? Because ALEC says they should.
The American Legislative Exchange Council, the secretive right-wing extremist organization responsible for notorious laws like “Stand Your Ground” and Arizona’s “Show me your papers” immigration policy also has the goal of privatizing public education on their agenda. ALEC wrote the vouchers language almost word for word.
House Speaker Thom Tillis is a national board member of ALEC, and ALEC’s former state chairman is Gov. Pat McCrory’s legislative lobbyist. Other members include North Carolina corporate titans Duke Energy and RJ Reynolds.
Large for-profit education corporations, including Sylvan Learning Centers and K-12 Inc., are the ALEC members heavily involved in drafting this type of legislation, which is also working its way through other states. It’s pretty obvious what their motivations are, isn’t it?
So maybe North Carolina does give a damn — about corporate profits and special interests.
Related Stories
This article appears in Aug 7-13, 2013.
I have been trying to convince my sister in law (a social studies teacher with a master’s degree) to move down to North Carolina from Maryland. She told me there is no way in hell she’d move here to teach. I can’t blame her. When we have kids I am positive we will move up to Maryland where they take education seriously. It’s sad because I love this state and will be heartbroken to leave.
Fiscal year 2012-13 Fiscal year 2013-14 %Increase Dollar increase
$11,072,499,236 $11,472,304,386 3.61 $399,805,150
Obviously, the above numbers make it is easy to see that there was an increase in spending, not a decrease as so many on the Left want you to believe.
So what are they talking about?
Here is the confusion explained. Every year, the General Assembly’s legislative staff creates a forecast, and they present their opinion of funding and revenue needed for government agencies based on their forecast calculations. This is how many things are done in state government, using forecasts instead of actual numbers. So, the left is claiming there is a decrease in education spending based upon this forecast, not any real spending data. This number is an informational baseline for legislators when deciding how much funding an agency might receive. Another baseline used is the amount of money actually spent the prior year. The Left is only using the forecast number, which is much higher than last year’s spending, and causing them to claim there is a cut in spending for education.
In fact, it is only a baseline. Decisions about real world policy have to be made by our elected representatives and not economists or statisticians on the fiscal research staff. This year those representatives of the people decided to increase spending on education by almost $400 million. That is a fact.
Funzo is coming!! 😀
Thanks for your comment, Garth. When the previous education budget is adjusted for inflation, the new budget is $535 million dollars less. It falls short before we even take into account a greater student population. This has nothing to do with forecasts, although I would like to point out that forecasts are not arbitrary numbers plucked from the sky, they’re based on extensive research.
Under the estimates of Gov. McCrory’s own budget office, the new budget is not enough to maintain current levels of service in public education, let alone fund any progress. This is not a Leftist point of view, it’s a sad fact.
Garth:
Are you actually claiming that they DIDN’T eliminate the Masters Degree Money, Didn’t eliminate tenure, didn’t increase class sizes, and did give the teachers cost of living raises? After all, he gave all his political patronage employees HUGE raises.
What gets me is that there aren’t any private schools in our area worth going to, Virginia will be getting NC’s money because that is where some of the children go to private schools.
Do you like paying another state money to send a child to private school?
At least these dear children will be in Jesus own home schools to go to with mommy as the most QUALIFIED teacher (who God commands us should NEVER work outside of the home and always submit to her husband and have lots of white babies) and learn that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, that Adam and Eve were real and rode Dinosaurs and that this is a 100% Christian fundamentalist only nation! They’ll need all that faith for the life time of abuse, violence low pay and poverty libertarians, the Tea Trash and ALEC have planned for them!
Double…I understand your sarcasm, however, I’d like to point out that most Christians do not actually think that way and aren’t as naive or uneducated as you portray them. I am a teacher and a Christian, and I’m just as disgusted with our state government. And, side note, the Bible actually commends a woman for working outside the home and notes a woman who does such things as respectable. Proverbs 31. 🙂
Garth-
You are missing the bigger issues with the budget – the biggest issues have to do with the devaluing of the teaching profession in NC and the investment in the privatization of schools.
The travesty of all of this? The victims are not simply teachers and those whose careers have been in public school education, but the children of NC. This will reverberate through many generations of North Carolinians.
N.C. has legislated itself into education oblivion and is rushing headlong towards dead last in the entire nation in all aspects of education. Good luck with that.
Erin,
You wrote:
” the General Assembly passed a budget that would strip over half a billion dollars from our state’s already cash-strapped school systems.”
And I replied with cold hard numbers that show that your statement is a blatant lie (education funding is UP $400 million YOY). Your reply is a blatant lie as well: the increase is 3.61% but official inflation is < 2% for both 2012 and 2013 (trailing twelve months). Do yourself a favor and stop making yourself look even dumber with subsequent posts and articles.
I just moved from North Carolina in June. I went through hell trying to get my license to teach, only to make the same pay I did 12 years ago when I left Ohio. Although I love the state, I could not come back to live, I would be in poverty, again. It is a darn shame what they are doing to educators and the educational system in North Carolina.
This is really sad. I am ready to retire after living in MD for over 50 years. I was thinking of Tennessee, but then they have this judge that likes to rename children. Thinking NC, then they do this education crap and voter supresssion crap. MD is maybe to expensive for me to liv ein during my retirement, but I will be damned if I will move to a state that is run by a bunch of idiot republicans that just dont give a sh*t about anyone.
@ Carmen,
Why not seek employment at a private school, where you would be free of the politics of both the NCGA and the NCAE?
Ending public education throughout the country is a major ALEC goal, and proceeding nicely. Like everything, one purpose is to filter all tax money for services through some rich folks so they can skim off a lot of it (converting districts pay their CEOs an average of $73 million a year out of your school taxes), while passing laws not requiring teachers to have education or licensure. The other purpose is to change “education” forever. For example, in Michigan, the “private” schools are largely fundamentalist with the mission of teaching, primarily, “submission” and “obedience,” and getting young people out of school and into the work force at the first possible moment.
https://au.org/church-state/september-2010-church-state/featured/sneak-attack
Maybe a minor note in the article, but a serious one for parents, is busing. If I’m not mistaken a large number of buses in this state are seriously overdue for replacement. There was some CO coverage after a bus fire last year. I know ending busing would work out pretty well for ALEC interests, too, since that would effectively end desegregation.
the rich will go to college, and the poor will go on welfare . .great future for rich white repooplinuts
I copied these two comments to be able to respond, I noticed that they were made in August of this year, 2013, I just now got to read this article today in September of 2013! At least these dear children will be in Jesus own home schools to go to with mommy as the most QUALIFIED teacher (who God commands us should NEVER work outside of the home and always submit to her husband and have lots of white babies) and learn that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, that Adam and Eve were real and rode Dinosaurs and that this is a 100% Christian fundamentalist only nation! They’ll need all that faith for the life time of abuse, violence low pay and poverty libertarians, the Tea Trash and ALEC have planned for them!
report 31 likes, 15 dislikes like dislike
Posted by DoubleDogDiogenes on 08/12/2013 at 10:55 PM
Double…I understand your sarcasm, however, I’d like to point out that most Christians do not actually think that way and aren’t as naive or uneducated as you portray them. I am a teacher and a Christian, and I’m just as disgusted with our state government. And, side note, the Bible actually commends a woman for working outside the home and notes a woman who does such things as respectable. Proverbs 31. 🙂
This is what I have to say to Doubledog about his article! I am not a teacher or student anymore but you have just shown how ignorant some people can be on this subject! Why do you not go to the Word of God to see where you are wrong! However you choose to believe is between you and your creator and you cannot take some subjects from God’s Word and just say whatever you want too no matter who it may hurt! If you truly know God’s word and are claiming Christianity you would not post things such as this! I believe that the teacher who responded to you is truly a Christian because of how she answered your reply..think about it!!!
Democrats can’t seem to let loose of the tit even though it is dry.