Spinning education

by | Aug 20, 2015 | Editor's Blog, Education | 13 comments

Republicans clearly understand that their heavy-handed approach to cutting education hurts them politically. Last year, Kay Hagan almost defeated Thom Tillis in a Republican wave by making the race about his record on public education. So they’re launching a multi-front offensive defending (a defensive?) their education policies and trying to convince the public that they’ve actually helped the schools they so obviously harmed.

In response to an article by educator James Hogan titled “The War on North Carolina’s Public Schools” that outlined the damage and cuts done to public education in North Carolina, conservative education specialist, Rebecca Berg, published an article called “The real war on education.” Berg attempted to discredit Hogan’s claims but her arguments were rebutted by another educator. Two Republican legislators, Craig Horn and Rob Bryan, wrote a rosy piece about how great North Carolina is doing and how the GOP has transformed our education system. And if that weren’t enough, Lt. Governor Dan Forest is releasing a series of videos defending GOP education policies.

Unfortunately for Republicans, the people know exactly what they’ve done to public schools. Year after year, they’ve sent their children and grandchildren into classrooms with less resources and more demoralized teachers. They’re asked to give more time and money to make up for the cuts handed down by the General Assembly. All of the spin in the world won’t change the realities that families are living.

Republicans claimed that public schools were broken, but that wasn’t true. Like any state the size of North Carolina, some school systems struggled while others excelled. Overall, the North Carolina schools saw slow, steady progress throughout the 1990s and through the first decade of the 21st century. Instead of focusing on the problems, Republicans cut everything and started shifting public funds into private schools. The GOP’s answers to solving problems is always to cut first, ask questions later.

Republicans blame Democrats for cutting education and freezing teacher pay but then continued to do both. Arguing that the other side did something wrong and then doubling down on that mistake, is bad politics. Republicans also claim they’re spending more on education but fewer classroom resources, fewer teacher assistants and fewer support staff begs the obvious question, “Then what the hell did you do with the money?” Our per pupil spending and teacher salaries are among the lowest in the nation.

In reality, the current GOP leadership doesn’t see public education as a priority. Instead, they’ve put ideology and politics first.  The GOP wants to shift the financial burden from the state to local governments. Forest almost says as much in his video. They also want to satisfy their base by subsidizing private schools that teach children the earth is 6,000 years old and that humans shared the earth with dinosaurs. Those are the real goals. The quality of public education be damned.

13 Comments

  1. Marie

    Sad situation here. We moved to this area because of the highly ranked public school system. The Republican party and its contributors are trying to make the public schools worse so they can make a case for opening more private schools. This is a profit-making opportunity for Republican businessmen. I suggest checking out the Koch brothers agenda from the past several years if anyone has any doubts.

  2. Esse Quam Videri

    Suggestion for issues: economics, education, equality. A Progressive message might read: “People, Democrats will help you get rich faster than Republicans will. We support developing services not surpluses, targeting needs with tax fairness, supporting families with positive policies in health education housing and job creation. Rural or urban, eastern or western, religious or secular Democrats want you to be rich in the ways you yourself wish to be rich. A vote for Democrats is a vote for your future.”

  3. Nancy

    After teaching for almost 40 years I had to leave my classroom in 2008 because of health issues. I have been on disability leave ever since. I went back to a school this week for a few hours to help a young friend get her classroom ready. I wanted to cry for all of these teachers. There were no supplies waiting at all. Our city no longer has a teacher supply store. It closed because they were no longer making a profit since it has been so long since teachers had a pay increase they no longer can afford to really shop as they once did. To purchase teacher resource supplies these teachers now have to drive either 100 miles in one direction or 75 miles in another direction to spend money out of their own pockets to purchase bulletin board materials, resource books and other things for their classrooms! At least the year I left we had $100 worth of supplies to start school with. There were few text books at this magnet school and only 3 computers in the classroom for the children to use. No assistants were in the school since the budget has not been passed and the administration cannot hire any since their very existence is still up in the air. Yet, these teachers will have smiles on their faces on Monday morning to welcome the children to begin another year trying to do the impossible with next to nothing. I can tell you how to get a better education budget. EVERY legislator should be required to spend a week teaching in an elementary school. I’m sure someone would be glad to leave some lesson plans.for them. I’d be willing to bet that by Wednesday you’d see a bill promising every teacher an assistant and a $10, 000 raise.

  4. Amy J

    Watch Senate Bill 561 in the upcoming weeks. It is a proposal for Community Colleges to come into the high schools to teach what would be developmental reading, writing, and math at the CCs. Never mind that research shows that the pivotal time for readers to begin to fall behind is third grade. Never mind that they’ve cut the support, financial and human, to these grades.
    http://wral.com/14838805

  5. Donna VanVleet

    Dan Forest’s self-serving video is a laugh a minute. Education is not a priority in any definition of the term as the present Assembly conceives it. i wonder how many of those elected to that august group would have gotten there without some stellar teachers in their backgrounds?

  6. LHMack

    The key point is that the Democratic Party must do things, many things differently. Sadly I see few signs except for Roy Cooper ‘s fundraising that give me any hope in our leadership. Heaven help our schools. It doesn’t look as though anyone else will.

    • TY Thompson

      It’s not all that bad when you remember that the political class defines a slowing rate of increased spending as a “cut”.

      • Apply Liberally

        It IS really “all that bad” when you consider that the GOP defines one single aditonal dollar more, in absolute numbers, as a funding “increase” — totally disregarding inflation, growing enrollments, or a decrease in per-pupil support.

  7. Eilene

    Humans and dinosaurs did not roam the earth together, Thomas. God put those bones there. We’re not sure why, but ours is not to question God. Oh, and he put dinosaur eggs there, too. He’s an artist.

    (Please sense my sarcasm and don’t reply to me with an argument against my position, fellow readers..I’m actually a science teacher.) 🙂

  8. Betty McGuire

    I agree. Education has got to be the most important campaign issue in 2016. Democrats need to get it done in a highly professional manner. The statistics are there to prove what the GOP has done since they have been in charge.

  9. Anderson D. Orr

    This is disconcerting. To my mind NC is ripe for Democrats to run issues, rather than candidate, focused political advertising – starting with public education. Now NC Republicans have beat Democrats to the punch.
    The “Swift Boat” ad campaign against John Kerry taught Republicans that issues oriented ads are effective at winning over hearts and minds of the electorate and they’ve since become routine practitioners of this strategy. Recently there have been conservative ads (running on MSNBC no less) arguing that the Iran treaty should be rejected.
    Democrats would be wise, I believe, to figure out how to make their case with smartly produced, informative, and persuasive issues focused ads rather than simply trying to sell specific candidates to the public.

    • robert

      You are exactly correct here in your suggestion of “issues focused” advertising by the Democrat party vs. individual campaign funding. It must place Cooper at the head but with a strong message to change the legislature for the sake of schools, for environment and clean water, shores,and rivers already ruined by neglect and cronyism with the polluters, for reestablishing the great UNC sysyem back to a place of national prominence, for economic justice for the middle class not just the super rich, for correcting our ruinous healthcare mistakes by the GOP legislatiure in rejecting free federal medicaid billions, to reestablish local control over local concerns back to local government without the overreach of ideology centered in general assembly and to restore the state back to a position of national respect rather than laughing stock for the sake of attracting real jobs by real companies who would like to move their own families to this state rather than being driven away..

  10. Progressive Wing

    Yes to everything you say, Thomas. Unfortunately,unless turnout in forthcoming elections is very heavy with more open-minded, critically thinking voters than the inattentive and gullible sorts the GOP can sway and count on, K-12 and higher education in NC will continue its downward spiral,

    The GOP must lose the governor’s seat and their super-majority in at least one of the NCGA chambers in 2016 if we hope to start fixing GOP mistakes as soon as possible.

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