Guest blogger Gerrick Brenner is Executive Director of Progress NC .
How many Republican state lawmakers does it take to defend the GOP’s cuts to our public schools? Apparently at a town hall meeting in his own district, House Rep. Tim Moffitt of Buncombe County knew he could not do it alone.
There was Moffitt Thursday night in a high school gym that was packed with about a thousand parents, teachers, and students. They wanted answers on repeated decisions in Raleigh to cut public schools. Many of these folks were Moffitt’s constituents. It was a chance for Moffitt to speak directly to voters on the hottest issue in state politics – public education. Instead, Moffitt brought in other seemingly anonymous GOP lawmakers from 150 miles away for help. But Moffitt’s bullpen only made matters worse.
Virtually no one in this Asheville gym had ever heard of House Reps. Bill Brawley of Mecklenburg or Craig Horn of Union Counties. No one had ever seen their names on a Buncombe County ballot. But there they were, trying to carry water for Moffitt in front of an audience that was clearly agitated to hear Brawley claim the GOP had passed the largest education budget in state history. People groaned. Brawley started lecturing in a condescending tone reserved only for politicians who don’t really care because they are speaking to someone else’s voters. No one was buying it. Some started heckling.
Rep. Horn came next and explained he was Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education. People were more interested in cuts to their children’s classrooms than the politician’s job title. Horn rolled out a now familiar accounting claim that North Carolina is actually 10th in the nation in education spending if you don’t count local dollars. People shook their heads, and Horn finally admitted on some of the GOP decisions on education funding: “We screwed up. We’re going to fix it.”
Most in attendance had to wonder, “Just who are these guys? Where did they come from? And why isn’t our own Representative leading this conversation on our public schools.” Moffitt, of course, is the lawmaker who once said in a legislative committee in Raleigh: “I’m very suspect of early childhood education. I’m very suspect of education in general.” This time, he hoped to import some politicians who are more seasoned at talking about schools. Instead, all three looked like the GOP is out of answers.
Other local Republican lawmakers spoke after Moffitt, but they too sounded almost apologetic in the high school gym.
Yes, Republicans will likely offer some kind of teacher pay raise in the short session, which starts this week. But it’s likely too little and too late. Their tax cuts have dug a $445M budget hole. Any miserly one-time pay raise they offer for teachers will make hardly a dent in North Carolina’s embarrassing ranking of 46th in the nation in teacher pay. And if lawmakers like Moffitt need to wheel in other politicians to explain the cuts to public schools, the voters and media will quickly come to see that the folks they send to Raleigh are not really engaged in a top priority.
EOD And your reply also “says it all” about you. Sad, but you don’t think teaching k-12 is anymore important than any other state job. And you have no qualms about sending someone on a wild goose chase about your supposed sources of info. The Charlotte Observer Data Center only gives salary info by the employee’s name and position. It does not provide average salary info for state employees by position or band or length of service. Again, where did you get your average salary info for a 23-year state employee with a college degree?
Well, EOD, I appreciate your concern for my students, but they are the reason I do this job. I express my frustration in appropriate places, like this forum. I don’t stand in my classroom and scowl and complain. You must have missed the part where I told you my credentials, which means I’m probably pretty professional. And I also agreed that my salary isn’t that bad… I really feel for my colleagues more than anything, and for my kids, who do without basic educational supplies. But I am still having my contract violated as the legislature refuses to reinstate our steps year after year. If I want to complain about it and try to do something about it, I will. It’s called advocating for yourself. You really can’t hold that against me. So, look for me on TV at the first moral monday after school gets out.My attitude is pretty reasonable, and I’m not sure why you would think otherwise. I am calmly and rationally expressing my frustration at the current situation, and answering your questions, which I thought was polite.
EOD First, you’ll need to “show me” and prove this one: “Your $56,000 salary equals or exceeds the salary of the average college educated state worker in NC with 23 years experience.” Secondly, if you can, I’m betting you’re using it without context or much thoughtfulness. There are plenty of college-educated state workers who hold positions below their qualifications, and also many who do not have anywhere near the important responsibilities that a K-12 teacher has. And, lastly, as you are so willing to give advice to others based your view of their attitude, allow me to offer some advice to you on yours: Lose it. It’s dripping with arrogance and piousness, and can’t possibly serve you well.
@Mick, your remark..” many who do not have anywhere near the important responsibilities that a K-12 teacher has” says it all, and reinforces the negativity many citizens have today about teachers’ putting guilt trips on everyone about how “important” their jobs. As to “other state workers”, simply go to the Charlotte Observer Data Center website and have yourself a heyday, sir.
Note the absolute failure of EOD to address any concrete point. Libertarians HATE math.
Eilene, you are a public worker who chose public service as a career. Your $56,000 salary equals or exceeds the salary of the average college educated state worker in NC with 23 years experience. The fact you get no longevity is a result of your chosen path. With your attitude, I think it would be best if you did, indeed, seek employment in another state. I can’t imagine your unhappiness being good for your students. Sorry, JMO.
p.s. I am not a Repub.
Libertarians are WORSE than repubs.
We’ve traveled different paths, EOD. I’m a now a registered unaffiliated voter. I was a Dem from 1968 to 1991. Then switched to a Repub from 1990 to 2008 as I felt that the Dems were too little interested in private enterprise and too involved in social program engineering. Then, when the GOP started going off the rails with narrow-mindedness, intolerance, Tea Party influence, and priority given to the wealthy and corporate class and short-shrift given to the middle class, I re-registered as unaffiliated, and now lean progressive. I’m 64 years old.
Name calling like a 5 year old always works…. It clearly shows the level your mind is working at. Good grief! WHO has no respect?
Even though I live in New York, I have interest in North Carolina. My daughter at one time lived in Raleigh when she taught at NC State. I also have a very dear friend living in a small town in the western part of the state, so I have been following the general decline of this state for years.
What is going on in this state is appalling. From medicaid expansion refusal, voter rights suppression, cuts in education,changing of the tax laws to favor the wealthy at the expense of the poor, and middle class, and so on. It is incredible how this state has dropped from a progressive state, to a backward state.
The voters of North Carolina MUST unite, and do the right thing in the coming elections, and regain sanity,
Voters in NC HAVE UNITED, Herb! WE the PEOPLE are overcoming over 140+ years of total democrackkk desecration. Democrackkks are EVIL EVIL people who like to steal from people under the guise of helping people…they have NO respect for the INDIVIDUAL.
I must say it is bracing –and also sad– to read comments that offer no facts, intelligent insight, or persuasive argument, but rather emotionally rant, sophomorically and crassly misspell (or make up) words, and SHOUT. I’d say it’s reflective of some of challenges faced within NC politics…..
Mick, unfortunately these days, it’s reflective of MOST of the challenges. There can be no intelligent debate. They are keeping their constituents woefully mis and under- informed. It is a very sad and ultimately trgic situation for this state
What smug remarks. 🙂
A conservative mocking someone else about being smug is like a conman laughing at the lie someone just got caught in.
“We the People” paid for by…whom….I know *MY* guess….
They are still trotting out the lie that this is the biggest education budget ever in NC history – and therefore not worthy of criticism? There are also far more students, more ESL students, less teacher’s aides, less money for supplies, lack of raises for YEARS, trashing of tenure, ending the raise for getting a master’s degree in education (because why get job training in your field, if you’re an educator!) Their bragging about their budget is a horrible joke.
NCGOP is FILLED with liars. Unfortunately for NC students, they seem to have a base – like EOD above – devoted to the destruction of the schools.
NCGOP likes to trot out its “market-focused” approach but forget that the “markets” pay for top talent. NCGOP only pays for its cronies. All other public employees will start looking elsewhere. At what point will the citizens realize NCGOP has destroyed the state?
5 minutes on a cost of living website shows that the rate of pay for teachers in other states compared to the increase in pay for teachers is not even comparable.
If a conservative is speaking a conservative is lying.
Thomas, I spent a good deal more than 5 minutes, and you are telling the absolute truth. There are very few states in this country where teachers have less spending power than North Carolina. I couldn’t wait to move here… have owned property here for years and years, and finally had the opportunity to move here. I was so happy! When the recession hit, I understood that everyone should take a little hit until we got back on our feet… except that is not what happened. Teachers and state employees had the entire budget balanced on their backs when they were the only ones receiving pay cuts. Meanwhile, the wealthy had their tax rates slashed.Now that we are at least doing a little better, put us back on our original pay step. I don’t even pretend to ask for the thousands of dollars in back pay that I am owed, I just want to be put on the correct step now. Our retirement benefits calculate the average of the last four (or five? I forget) years of our highest salary, so every year they keep my pay the same, I lose out on potential income for years and years. It is robbery.
Did I hear you say, “Summer break is upon us all”, Kathy? How nice it would be if all of NC’s government workers got that break (add 20+% to your salary for that, please). Did I hear you say you’re going out of state for a better paying teacher’s job Eilene? Well, write us when you get there and let us know how the cost of living is when you land that new job. Frankly, I think the state leg. should have taken the “ball and chain” off all teachers years ago, because it has been inhumane to shackle them to their chosen profession.
Add 20%?? You do understand that we do not get paid for the summer, don’t you?? Most teachers I know are either working a summer job, attending required and/or optional professional development, or all three. At the very least, I assure you they are spending a great deal of time preparing for the next school year. And for the record, the state doesn’t have to shackle us to our profession — our love for children and education keeps us there. We have been extremely patient, given the blow to our incomes over the past 5 or 6 years, and many of us are stil around despite the legislative face-slapping we’ve had — hoping the GA WILL fix what they’ve destroyed. I think the fact that there are ANY teachers left in NC after the last session speaks volumes about our dedication to our chosen profession. For you to imply that since we CHOSE to become educators, we should just humbly accept whatever crumbs we are tossed is just idiotic. True — no one chose to become a teacher to become wealthy. But If we wanted to take vows of poverty, we would have CHOSEN to become monks. Wake County lost over 600 teachers this year alone….and the year isn’t over yet! Go spew your ignorance on the parents of Wake County and see if they agree with you.
Thank you E O D !!! my sentiments exactly…sick of whineyass ‘educators’ in NC !!!
I am sick of conservatives but you don’t hear me advocating that they be chained to sewers.
Oh and you’re an ‘unaffiliated voter’ in much the same way that Geek is ‘independent’…focus groups probably tell you that ‘independent’ sounding names makes your psyops more effective but it actually makes you easier to spot.
unaffiliated… that’s cute. You probably voted democrat the last time my dad did…never.
For my part, Eilene, I was a Democrat all my life (now 71) until I finally woke up. I am now Unaffiliated, like a growing number of other voters. You and I both know the plight of our teachers is not the doing of the state GOP. By the way, I am also a retired state employee.
My condolences for your recent injury. I hope you have proper supervision and that you don’t give out your personal information to people offering you land in Florida. That explains a lot. ‘Woke up’ indeed.
EOD, you really are misinformed. I do not have paid summer vacation. I am a ten-month employee. Even though I do school work half the summer, for free. I attend workshops, plan lessons, create a full year’s calendar for my AP students, etc. Ball and chain? What are you rambling about? And as for cost of living vs salary increase, the math is pretty easy. South Carolina’s cost of living is LOWER than NC, but the pay scale is higher, usually by several thousand dollars. Virginia’s cost of living is a little higher in some areas, but not all, and again, pay is thousands of dollars higher. I’m not even asking for NC to keep up with every other state out there. I am asking for them to pay me what they contractually agreed to when I moved here. We have no union to protect us or help us negotiate a contract. The legislature decides what we should be paid, and if we don’t like it, we can get out of the state or get out of teaching. Nice. Well, they decided what I should be paid, and it wasn’t horrible at the time, but for the last 6 years, I have not gotten the promised step increases, costing me thousands of dollars over the last 6 years. I didn’t bully them into the salary schedule, it is what they decided to offer. Now that I’m here, they say… um, nope, screw you. Breach of contract, EOD, that is what it is called. I am looking at several other states as well, and the pay raises are all well in line with the cost of living, so that I will have more actual spending power. You are delusional if you think that this state won’t have a MAJOR problem in education in a few years if they keep this up. Enrollment in education majors in colleges is down significantly, and you will have nobody to fill our spots when we are gone. Most of the country thinks that we are uneducated hicks down here with everything that is going on with our legislature, and pretty soon, they will be right.
Eilene, would you be so kind as to tell all of us how many years you have been a teacher, where you teach and what your current salary, local supplement and longevity pay is? Perhaps you would like to come to Dare County (NC). Here is their pay scale. I saw one 2nd grade teacher making $70,000 per year. Go figure. ??
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx9gLPhbn5YHS0x3VHR0ODQ3d0U/edit
sure thing, EOD. It is public record. Like I said, I am probably one of the highest paid teachers in my school. I have 23 years of experience, a Master’s degree and National Board Certification. I think my base salary is 52,750.In Catawba County, our stipend is 7%, which makes my salary a little over 56,000. I don’t get longevity since I’ve only been in this state 6 years. I also don’t get credit for my first year and a half of teaching because it wasn’t with a public school board entity. The highest number on the current pay scale with a PhD and National Boards is 68,000, so that teacher making 70,000 must have at least 30 years of experience, a PhD, and at least some supplement. According to the 2008-2009 schedule in effect when I hired on, I should be making over 56,000 before my supplement this year. So this year alone, I am losing over $3000. (plus 7% of that) $56,000 isn’t horrible, but if you knew the extra hours I put in every single week, doing everything from tutoring to sponsoring the Science Olympiad team, serving on several committees, grading papers, rewriting curriculum, and teaching professional development units for free, all the sudden, it isn’t so much. My husband took a $12,000 cut in pay so I could move here, so our budget is pretty tight. I will spend 2 weeks at AP Institutes this summer, plus a week-long STEM program, along with lesson re-vamps, contacting scientists and speakers to come talk to my class, arranging field trips to research labs for my AP students, so the dollars per hour start to look pretty puny. I came from Florida, where salaries were pretty equal at the time, but no state income tax, and at the time, the school board paid 100% of our retirement. Here, they take 6% of my check for retirement, and we have state taxes, so essentially, I took a pay cut as well. After 23 years of honing my craft, I am an outstanding teacher. I have never settled, gotten complacent, or whatever insults many of those who call us whiners and losers try to throw at us. I learn something new every day. But I will say this. This year, and particularly the last few months, the words “I just don’t want to teach anymore” have come out of my mouth quite a few times, and it ain’t the kids or the job. It is the lack of respect we get from our legislators, and the general public. We are the whipping dogs for all of those reformers that think our entire job can be boiled down to handing out worksheets and giving standardized tests. This state is downright hateful. It’s demoralizing. And before you go blaming democrats for this mess, lets not forget that since 2010, the NC legislature has been run by republicans, and the financial crisis that hit in 2008 and was caused by your favorite son, George W Bush, not President Obama. So, no, this isn’t a democrat pickle. We might have helped can the pickles, but we sure as heck didn’t create the situation. You give Mike and Bev too much credit, to shift blame.
Oh, and the books I use for my regular biology classes were bought in 1998 (because you know science hasn’t changed a bit in 16 years), the covers are falling off or gone completely, and so are many of the pages within. So what does our illustrious General Assembly do? Cut textbook money to practically non-existent, and no money for digital subscriptions instead. And, most schools only allot a certain number of copies per teacher due to budget constraints, so you can’t print supplements if you need them. Brilliant. They short-change our students even more than our teachers. And let me tell you about the classy furniture the teachers and the kids get to sit on… broken chairs that sink down every time you sit down, so you have to lever it up every single time, student desks with the book racks under the seat falling off, so the little pieces of metal can cut you open if you aren’t careful, and the cheapest lab stools available for science labs, so that every time one falls over, the seat goes flying off. I went to Lowes and bought a container of wood glue, with my own money, of course, took every stool apart, glued the seat to the base and then rescrewed them. That took several hours for the 30 stools I had to do.
Just remember, it really is true that you get what you pay for. If they could get rid of most of the downtown school board employees and staff the schools appropriately, we would have a very different system, not to mention that I could finally have a few class sizes under 34 or 35. That sure seems like it would be nice…. but I’m dreaming. The legislature certainly doesn’t think class size rules are smart, and that you can just as effectively teach 40 students in a class as you can 24-26. I call massive BS, as does every reliable and valid piece of educational research.
http://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2014/05/09/teachers-retiring-leaving-buncombe-schools/8917399/
Is it time for NC teachers, librarians, and other educators to take a stand? Summer break is upon us all, educators need to show up at the Moral Monday events in Raleigh and around the state this summer. Token pocket change pay raises are an insult to career teachers! How far will educators take their grievances? The US is watching us North Carolina! We MUST take back the State House this year!
“Brawley started lecturing in a condescending tone reserved only for politicians who don’t really care because they are speaking to someone else’s voters.” Actually, Brawley speaks that way to his own constituents in Mecklenburg County. I have heard it firsthand in a Meck County legislators forum.
And there, Eilene, lies the problem
My husband and I are looking for employment elsewhere. (He works for DENR, so it won’t be long before the Republicans deem that whole agency unnecessary because that would just slow businesses down. When he started, there where 13 employees in his office, now there are 5… for 13 counties.) As a teacher with 23 years experience, a Master’s Degree and National Board Certification, I am probably one of the best paid teachers in my building, but it ain’t enough. They add more and more work every year, ridiculous amounts of paperwork that has nothing to do with the best interests of the students, and besides, I would be making thousands more in any state nearby (or far away…) I am making less this year than when I moved here in 2008. That is just insane. But in my neck of the woods, everyone is conservative, and will vote straight Republican to spite their own best interests because they agree with their take on religion. I just don’t freaking get it. My county is rural, and not very wealthy. They just don’t see the problem. We are having important voting decisions being made by people who don’t understand what they are voting for.
Although I am not in your area of the State (Dare Co.) – I just finished a letter to my Representive and have address the very issues that you bought up. I agree with your view 100%. More grass root people need to be contacting their reps. I sure hope the next election will give us some changes. The mid term here did not help much.
If a conservative is speaking, a conservative is lying.
and if a lieberal progressive speaks, it’s the truth? strive to be smarter than any evil criminal democrackkk WANTS you to BE…
If a liberal politician lies there is an excellent chance they will be drummed out of office (note, that’s lies to the real world, not the reagan reality). Of course liberals lie….but in the democratic party, truth and empathy are the highest virtues…in the republican party, LOYALTY matters above all followed by adherence to party doctrine.
Karl Rove said it best…conservatives make their own reality. IE, they are LIARS.
Thank you, Gerrick, for this report. Seems like all the GOP elected are using that same bullet/claim re: the GOP giving more to education than anyone legislature in history (Berger used it with the press last week). But they always fail to mention no teacher salary increases, the cutting of teaching assistants, and the likely fact that their fat calculation of money going to education includes the new money set aside to go to charter and private schools and not to existing traditional public schools.
You are right. They are out of ideas and will likely do something of the tokenvariety on a pay increase to teachers this year—-after all, it is an election year and most parents (voters) are losing patience. And, they absolutely find themselves backed to the wall on education, hence the need for bringing in the “reinforcements” at town/district meetings. They likely think that a representative who is not elected by those in the audience doesn’t lose any votes when giving clueless and/or arrogant responses to questions.