Pendulum and Politics...

The political climate is often like a pendulum, swinging from one extreme to another.  The deconstruction of public education has been swinging for a long time in North Carolina.  Could it be beginning to swing back to sanity?

IMHO, teaching has been under attack in our great nation for several years now. As a country, we have asked teachers to perform the tasks of teacher, parent, social worker, behavior specialist, english-as-second-language-teacher, and many other tasks beyond the scope of their training. All while decreasing pay and benefits for the same job.  North Carolina has been a front runner of such craziness.  North Carolina is ranked 46th to 49th (depending on which source you reference) in teacher pay. Remember how many states there are in the US? That's pretty low.

It seems disingenuous at best to hear Governor McCrory "lament the state's near-bottom average teacher salary" after the gutting his administration just gave NC teachers (cutting education budget by $285 million, lay-offs, eliminating differential pay for Master's level teachers, etc). The $4,200 pay bump to be doled out over two years to the newest teachers (by some estimates about 24,000 teachers)is a move in the right direction, but may well stick in the craw of veteran teachers (by some estimates about 71,000 teachers) who might resent new teachers making more than they.

I don't have any faith in McCrory and his "friends" wanting to repair our education system.  I'm of the opinion that they are not interested in doing so. However, what they may be interested in, is if enough North Carolinians continue to be outraged and express their outrage in a variety of forums.  That is why he's offered this tiny pay-bump, and with enough pressure may make further changes. So, keep the pressure on folks, speak out, write McCrory, and support your teachers however you can.