The damage that Republicans are doing to public schools is on full display. Our per pupil spending is among the lowest in the nation. Our teacher pay ranks down there, too, and a new study lists North Carolina 50 on its list of best states for teachers.
Now, the Senate wants to divert federal money for food and transportation from traditional schools that provide those services to charter schools that don’t. Counties that allot additional money for public schools to provide better teacher pay and other amenities would be required to share that money with charters. It’s really just another way to take a slap at traditional public schools.
Republicans are clearly trying to damage traditional public schools. They’re leaving them underfunded and running off teachers. Now, they’ve found a way to further reduce their revenue. As they continue to demand that schools do more and more with less and less, they are setting up our whole school system for failure to prove their point that public schools are broken.
Ironically, we hear Republicans constantly harp on making government run more efficiently and cost effectively. Clearly, the most cost effective way to educate children is in large schools with replicable systems. Yet the GOP is advocating a system of much smaller schools with far fewer economies of scale. In addition, they’re siphoning off money from all of those public schools and giving it to private schools.
If they want to argue for that system, fine, but they should fund it. It’ll cost a lot more than we’re paying now. Instead, they’re starving the system we have and paying off their base by allowing them to set up charter schools with no accountability—another thing Republicans demand of every other government-funded program. They’re not reforming our schools; they’re just damaging them and our kids are paying the price.
In education, Republicans have delivered Democrats a winning issue. Polling shows that people across the political spectrum think public education is heading in the wrong direction. While the GOP might not think much of our public schools, the public does.
Democrats need to hang underfunded schools around Republicans’ necks. They should avoid the mistakes of the Hagan campaign, though. Don’t argue that Republican cut funding to schools or they’ll divert the conversation to an argument over semantics. Instead, per pupil spending is among the lowest in the nation and, adjusted for inflation, is lower than it’s been over a decade. Republicans sent public money to private schools. And, if the bill from last night passes the House, Republicans took money for food and transportation away from kids in traditional public schools and gave it to schools that offer neither.
If Republicans are determined to trash our public school system, Democrats should make sure them own the damage.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
“As CMD has calculated, the federal government has spent more than $3.3 billion in the past two-plus decades fueling the charter school industry that has taken money away from traditional public schools. And, as the Center for Popular Democracy has demonstrated, more than $200 million of that money resulted in fraud and waste over the past decade”. – See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/node/12936#sthash.RJQYysWi.dpuf
that site has a really nice interactive map of closed or failed Charter Schools from 2001 through 2013
I have no exclusive access to the truth. Facts are facts, I don’t claim authorship as it is not my “material.” You can spin, pout, deflect, change the subject, lie, bluster and threaten, but you can’t change the facts. It must be difficult to recognize factuality when one is constantly “disgusted.”
Spin, distort, change the subject. You may think we’re having some sort of debate, but I am not interested in debating tactics. I will continue to post factual information. If I err, I will post a correction. And I will continue to challenge the deliberately misleading allegations and falsehoods that you and other liberals are prone to assert here and elsewhere. You’re free to ignore my comments or respond, it’s your choice.
It is really is a delicious irony hearing liberals who support every public assistance and social welfare program designed to promote dependency on public resources suddenly become enraged that conservatives have come up with a program that actually empowers low income families.
Opposition to low income education vouchers clearly illustrates the hypocrisy of today’s liberals who are much more interested in cultivating constitutiences like the public education bureaucracy and its support groups than in providing a meaningful opportunity to society’s less fortunate for social and economic advancement. Programs like education vouchers that promote self sufficiency rather than dependency pose a lethal threat to the left’s political power.
And the amount budgeted for the Opportunity Scholarship program is less than 2 percent of the total amount of $12,300,000,000 allocated for public education in the recently passed budget. Each low income participant receives a educational stipend of $4,200 The average cost per pupil in NC K-12 public schools is a little over $8500, almost $9,000 if capital expenditures are calculated in the overall cost.
Your third comment is worth discussing, because it’s evidence-based. Your first two paragraphs are ad hominems that do nothing to advance the discussion. They serve only to anger and insult. Would you be willing to delete those so that people can discuss the valid points you raise in your third paragraph?
You’re mostly right, but not totally. Teachers with one to four years experience will receive a $200 a month raise plus the $750. Otherwise, they would make less than the new hires with no experience.
But yes, I stand corrected concerning teachers with 6-9, 11-14 16-19 etc. years of experience. They will only get the $750 bonus now, but when they reach the 5. 10 , 15 and 20 years plateaus, they will enjoy a substantial increase over the current salary schedule.
It’s interesting though, that you choose to rebut only one small portion of my comment, ignoring the big picture that the NCGA under GOP control has substantially increased public education spending, belying your misleading claim that funding for public schools has been reduced by the GOP.
You’re only half right about my sources, D.g. Information in my comments came from another organization’s web site in addition to Civitas. But since you apparently enjoy researching where my facts come from, you can work on that source, too. But you could save yourself a lot of time by just reviewing the state budget which is public information and not the exclusive purview of any individual or organization.
Oh, I see, facts aren’t facts unless you attribute them to a source. Yes, the summary of the state education budget came from the Civitas web site. And Civitas obviously got their facts from the state budget, but didn’t cite the budget as their source. They didn’t have to.
I don’t view my comments here as an attempt to win a Pulitzer Prize. My purpose here is to expose the lies and distortions of the left wing ideologues who post and comment here. And really, D.g., facts are facts and are not the exclusive property on any one individual or organization.
Good questions, because they get at the heart of what’s challenging about charters. I’m very new on the board of the charter I serve, so I had to look up a couple answers, and there are still a couple I’m not sure of, but here’s what I’ve got:
1) In NC charter schools, 50% of teachers must be licensed at the elementary level, 75% for high school. Not sure about administrators.
2) Those who are licensed must complete continuing education in order to retain their licensure. I’m guessing that those who aren’t don’t have to, but all charter schools I’m familiar with require their teachers to complete professional development. Of course, I am not very familiar with bad charter schools, and it’s possible that some charters require nothing. I doubt that there is a state requirement.
3) Yes, charter school students take all the same required tests, and they are submitted for state review. In theory, at least, charters will be shut down if they aren’t performing, and I know that some have. This is a sore point for some people who are pro-charter; they feel it’s unfair that charters that aren’t performing are shut down while some public schools that aren’t performing well are allowed to continue; however, given that charter schools have fewer restrictions and rules, it follows that they would be given less leeway to mess up.
4) A slightly tricky question: given that charter school students must take and perform well on state tests in order for the school to remain open, teachers must follow the same educational objectives; however, they technically are allowed to teach whatever they want. The reality is that successful charter schools follow the state’s teaching objectives very closely, but sometimes in a different order, and they often add extra, supporting curriculum (as good traditional public school teachers sometimes do).
5) Pay in charter schools is a very sticky issue. Charters are not required to pay staff according to the state pay schedule, and most do not. This is understandable given their budgetary constraints: having less than the public school per-pupil allotment from which to draw to cover all per-pupil expenses PLUS their buildings, grounds, and utilities, staff salaries are a huge struggle. At the charter whose board I sit on, they have worked very hard to bring teacher salaries up to state pay. Teacher assistants, custodians, and administrators are below state pay. At public charters who are transparent about this and about where their money goes, I see this as unfortunate, but frankly unavoidable. Teachers know the score going in and still choose to work at some charters because they offer alternative and innovative ways of teaching and a strong sense of cohesion and community. The flip side of this are charters attempting to make a profit. These schools pay their teachers as little as possible, hiring teachers who are new, naive, or not well-qualified. Needless to say, they do not serve their students well, but still manage to lure in some families.
6) As far as I know, charter schools’ boards are required to comply with the same laws, but I’m not certain, because I have never served on the board of a traditional public school. I know that charter school boards are required to comply with a lot of laws, and that we bear the responsibility for the school’s remaining fiscally solvent. New charter school board members at the school I serve are nominated and voted on by sitting board members, then must be confirmed by vote by the school community. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on school boards elected by popular vote. I’ve always thought it was a little odd that the public elects people who may be good at running for office, but who might have zero knowledge of running an institution and keeping it fiscally solvent, to say nothing of their understanding of education. I’m sure you’ve heard of the same horror stories as I have where special interests have poured money into school board races so as to stack the board in order to change school curriculum, for causes like teaching “intelligent design” alongside evolution in biology class. I suppose that if a charter school wanted to name people to its board that supported such things, they could. But in the end, if their students weren’t learning what the state mandated, the school would be closed.
7) I truly don’t know. I know that an out-of-state financial interest (or in-state one, for that matter) can’t own any part of the board at the school I represent, because the board would never allow such a thing. I don’t know how an out-of-state interest would “own” a charter school. I don’t think that a charter school is, in fact, owned by anyone. It is run by its board and its director, who reports to the board. But I don’t believe public charters can be owned. I don’t know what the rules are for what sort of “interests” can sit on the board. I do know that there are pretty strict laws regulating financial conflicts of interest that board members might have, if, say, a board member owned a chair business and the board had to make a decision about whether the school would buy chairs from that business. Can you give an example of what the situation that you’re citing would look like, having an out-of-state financial “interest” sit on the board?
It just occurred to me that for-profit charters must be owned by someone, otherwise, where would the profits go? But as I said earlier, I know almost nothing about for-profit charters. They are a totally different animal from public charters.
8) Some charters operate on a for-profit basis. But it would be a stretch to call these places “schools.”
9) I don’t know if charters publicly disclose their financial records, but I think so. I can’t imagine that they would be able to keep them a secret if they receive government funds.
But then I found this article, “Disclosure differs for charter schools run by for-profit firms.” http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article17402048.html
Sometimes the unimaginable is true, especially in the NC state legislature. Apparently this is a hot topic, with some companies that run charters arguing that how they spend their money is somehow a “trade secret.” There was apparently a push for more disclosure, but I doubt it got very far in the current legislature.
Thanks for getting me to think about these things. I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.
This is all really scary Sounds like Hitler tactics. Keep the masses stupid and ignorant and train them to think what I want them to think. Trump too It is all really frightening to see what North Carolina has done to the very Best Public School System in the country The only way these idiots will get re-elected is to Brainwash the people and keep them ignorant Thanks for telling us what we need to know. We don’t get any North Carolina news in Clay County You are only source THANK YOU!
Ebrun… you state: The recently enacted state budget for 2016 granted a $750 bonus to all veteran teachers PLUS an automatic one step up on the salary scale for all veteran teachers. This, along with the bonus, means an annual salary increase for all current teachers of from $3,000 to $3,500. or 6.9 to 9.6 percent increase.
That is absolutely not true. The only teachers receiving step raises are those at the 5 year marks for experience… 5 years experience, 10 years experience, 15 years… and new teachers. The rest of us will not. The $750 is not unappreciated, although it would have been far more appropriate to actually add it to our salary so we could count it towards retirement, but the smoke and mirrors crowd didn’t want that to happen.
As for the “average 7% raises” that you talk about, the number looks a hell of a lot better than it really is. First of all, new teachers got the lion’s share, with 18% raises. The rest of us got significantly less. And, the “raise” in many of our salaries was really not a raise at all. They took our longevity pay away (the only state employees to lose longevity, but the way) and threw it in the salary schedule and called it a raise. BS. I’m not making a penny more than I did before, and almost everyone with more than 10 years experience is in the same boat.
Democrats aren’t the only ones fudging numbers, Ebrun. As a matter of fact, we’re not nearly as adept at it as the Republicans, I’d say. And, just for the record, we may have raised the total spending for education in the last couple years, but it doesn’t come close to covering the increase in students across the state, and it is still less than levels from 2008, adjusted for inflation. (And hell yes, most everything costs a good bit more these days.)
Interesting you should mention 2008 but failed to note that in 2009 state funding for public education was actually cut while the Democrats were still in control. And BTW, 2009-10 was the last time public education funding in NC was actually cut.
And back when the Democrats were in control, education funding was based on the “continuation budget” which is nothing more than incremental budgeting. Assume the amount spent the previous budget was the correct amount and, whenever possible, increase that amount based on inflation and increased enrollment.
In most efficient operations, incremental budgeting went out with the typewriter. When the GOP took over the NCGA, zero based budgeting was adopted where most every major expenditures had to be justified from scratch rather than just accepting the previous year’s allocation as the basis for the next year’s spending. There is no factual basis to assume that the spending per pupil in 2008 was the correct amount and future budgeting should be based on past spending.
More lies, half-truths, distortions and Democrat propaganda from the left. But no data or numbers to back up these outrageous assertions. Here are some actual facts:
Since the GOP took over the NCGA in 2011, total spending for public education has increased $1.5 billion. or 14.1 percent over five years. Funding for K-12 public education has increased 20 percent during this five year period.
$1.1 billion of the $1.5 billion increase went for teacher salaries and retirement increases. In 2014, the average teacher salary for a ten-month contract in NC public schools was $47,800, plus Social Security, retirement and health benefits worth $14,500, according to the NC Dept. of Public Instruction.
The recently enacted state budget for 2016 granted a $750 bonus to all veteran teachers PLUS an automatic one step up on the salary scale for all veteran teachers. This, along with the bonus, means an annual salary increase for all current teachers of from $3,000 to $3,500. or 6.9 to 9.6 percent increase.
Charter schools represent less than 5 percent of all NC public schools, below the national average.
The group that ranked NC 50th in teacher salary and benefits based the ranking on data from 2013-14, which did not take into account the average 7 percent increase for the current year of the substantial increases for 2016 that just passed the NCGA.
The teacher-pupil ratio for NC public schools is 15.4, below the national average of 16,1, according to Nat’l Center for Education Statistics.
Here is more actual data about funding for public education in NC from the recently passed state budget:
Lawmakers add $530 million to the overall Education budget (public education, UNC System and Community Colleges) over base budget. Will spend $12.3 billion on public education in the coming year.
Public Schools: $8.52 B (+$415 million over last year)
UNC System: $2.75 B (+ $121 million over last year)
Colleges: $1.07 B (+$29 million over last year)
K-12 Education
Opportunity Scholarship Program: Provides $6.8 million in additional funds for Opportunity Scholarship Program in 2015-16 and $14 million in 2016-17. (Note: this is included in the UNC section of the budget bill)
Teacher Pay: Provides additional funds to raise starting teacher pay from $33,000 to $35,000.
Bonus: Provides one-time $750 bonus for all other teachers, administrators and LEA personnel.
Enrollment Growth: Provide $100 million to help educate 17,000 new students.
Teacher Assistants: Will fund Teacher Assistants at 2014-15 level, mandates that LEA’s use TA funding for TAs.
Reduce Class Size: Provides additional funding to decrease teacher student ratio by one student in grade one.
Textbooks and Media: $52 million provided to Increase general fund support for textbooks and digital resources.
School Connectivity: $12 million in new funds to increase School connectivity.
Driver Training: $24 million in nonrecurring taxpayer funds to fund the Driver Training program in public schools for this year. Next year funding will come from civil fines and forfeitures.
Ebrun, you have a nice, long list of numbers, yes. Are these numbers going to fill the positions of teachers moving to surrounding states that actually choose to fund education?
Folks can bend the numbers in a multitude of ways. By all means, continue to do so, if you find it a pleasant pastime. Meanwhile, NC teachers are leaving at an alarming rate. What do you propose to do to solve this problem?
“Concerns that teachers would leave North Carolina for better pay elsewhere ended up coming true – 734 teachers resigned to teach in another state in 2013-14, versus 455 the previous year…
In addition, more than 1,000 teachers left the profession because they were dissatisfied with teaching or wanted a career change, up from 887 in 2012-13.”
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article10112837.html#storylink=cpy
Interesting statistics on how many teachers left NC to teach in other states and on how many teachers left the profession. However, you don’t cite how many teachers were hired in NC hathad preciously taught in other states. You also don’t cite how many new teachers were hired to replace those who left or retired. The net number would be more significant rather than the gross numbers you cite.
Now, according the the National Center for Educational Statistics, the student/teacher ratio in NC is 15.4, which is less than the national average of 16.1. So NC is apparently doing better retaining and hiring teachers the some other states.
I am a public school teacher (taking time off to raise my pre-school-aged kids). I also sit on the board of a local public charter school. There is a LOT of misinformation and outright lies surrounding this issue – coming from both sides. It is also important to be aware that charter schools are NOT private schools. Here are some things I have recently learned.
1) Charter schools are public schools. They are not allowed to charge tuition (at least not in NC), and they, too, are forced to take whomever shows up at their door. This includes special needs children, for whom public schools, both charter and traditional, are sometimes legally required to higher additional staff, not knowing whether they will be fully reimbursed by the federal government for this staff’s salary. Sometimes they aren’t. This is a problem that both types of public school suffer from.
2) That said, charters generally have it a little easier, because (with rare exceptions) the kids who show up at the doors of charter schools were dropped off by their parents. The neediest kids – those who, like their parents, rely on bus transportation – don’t go to charter schools because they can’t get there, and most charter schools don’t provide meals (they aren’t required to). Charters most often (although not always) serve populations that are not in dire financial need.
3) On the flip side of the coin, charter schools receive zero money for capital layout expenses. That means that they have to figure out how to fund their entire physical plant –their buildings, their grounds, their power and water and heating bills – out of the meager amount of money they get per-pupil, and wherever else they can find it. They fund-raise like their very existence depends on it, because it does.
4) Many public charter schools are very much like traditional public schools: trying to squeeze every cent they can out of their budget to provide the best possible education to their students. That’s why they were founded, and it’s why they exist. There are, however, charter schools that are for-profit. They attempt to use the caché of being a charter school to get government money (and private donations) to “educate” students, while in reality doing the most paltry job possible so that they can keep the money for themselves. These schools should not be allowed to exist. Anyone in education for the right reasons knows that the idea of making money from NC’s (and really, any state’s) per-pupil allotment is a pure scam.
5) There IS inequality and unfairness in how charters are currently funded, and it’s not just because of programs that traditional public schools offer but charters don’t, like Child Nutrition and Transportation (not to mention the fact that charters get no funds for their buildings and grounds, which wasn’t even up for discussion in this bill). Many charters DID NOT want to get funding for buses and meals, and were distressed when dishonest politicians kept adding this funding back into the bill. There are funds that charters really should get, and others that they clearly should not. They should not get funding for programs they don’t offer. They should get the additional funding for students whose parents pay additional local education taxes (for example). Parents pay that money so that their kids’ school can get the money and provide a better education. That money, paid by the children’s parents, should follow the kids to a charter school. Why should a school get per-pupil money, whether state or local, for a pupil that doesn’t go to their school?
The state of public education in NC is awful. Teachers at traditional public and public charter schools are ALL feeling the stress. Many are leaving the profession, from both types of public school.
But the state of public education is not being improved by traditional public schools and public charters spreading lies and fighting over crumbs. Instead,
*For-profit charters need to be outed as the bogus entities they are, and should be abolished.
*Charter schools that are invested in public education must come out strongly against voucher programs and distance themselves from groups that promote vouchers (currently, the most powerful lobbying groups for charters are also pro-voucher. Charters, which receive even less funding then public schools, have little choice but to grudgingly work with these groups. Good charters need an alternative group to ally with, but public school groups persist in seeing the as the enemy. They’re not.
*Public charter schools and traditional public schools must band together to lobby for higher-per-pupil spending, less testing, guaranteed federal money for additional staff for special needs students, and the other, many issues they share in common. Additionally, many charters would very much like to provide transportation and meals. There should be pathways that allow them to receive this funding if they commit to offering these programs. This, in turn, could take some of the burden off public schools, which currently bear the weight of educating the state’s neediest students.
There are great charters out there, doing important work. They shouldn’t replace public schools, and they don’t want to. But many of them do want to be partners and allies in the fight for public education, a fight on which their existence also depends. It’s time to stop conflating charters as a whole with the dishonest politicians who would kill public education in a heart beat. They don’t represent all charters and they don’t represent what good charters want.
It’s time for good public charters and traditional public schools to work together.
The worst offender is Sen Jerry Tillman, who adamantly refused to allow an amendment that would require charters receiving funds for food services and transportation to actually provide those services.