When teachers across the state staged a “walk-in” to draw attention to the cuts to education, two of our state leaders had remarkably different reactions. Gov. Pat McCrory started backtracking after signing the budget that did the damage. He said teachers had legitimate grievances and announced his teacher advisory committee.
Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, though, warned the teachers about “bullying” legislators. Seriously. The guy who denied teachers raises, ended their job security, increased their work load by eliminating assistants and increasing class sizes thinks teachers are trying to bully him. And Berger holds the purse strings.
This looks much more like an abusive relationship than a bullying one. Nobody believes a group of teachers can bully the most powerful man in the state. But like an abusive spouse or parent, Berger is blaming the victim. He’s basically threatening, “Are you gonna make me beat you some more?” His response is disturbing. He doesn’t even acknowledge the complaints as legitimate.
So why the difference in the responses? Well, McCrory suddenly understands that harming public schools and teachers is a political liability. His approval ratings are in the tank and he’s not going to revive them by looking mean and uncaring. McCrory seems to be learning from his mistakes during his first nine months. At least he’s listening. Or pretending to. Now, we need to see if he has the backbone to stand up to the legislature.
Berger, on the other hand, is confident in his redistricting. He sees little political risk and is not going to tolerate dissent from his underlings. I don’t know if some teacher gave him an unwarranted paddling when he was a kid, but he obviously has resentments against teachers. Throughout the legislative session, he showed them no respect and he barely contained his pleasure at screwing them. Hence, his threatening tone.
Veteran teachers are leaving the public schools. Maybe that’s what Berger and company want to happen. It’s cheaper to hire younger, inexperience teachers and money is all that GOP legislators seem to care about. Or maybe it’s part of a bigger plan. Break the public schools by ridding them of their best and most experienced educators and use their demise as an excuse to expand the voucher program to subsidize more private schools. Regardless, our kids are the ones who will really suffer.
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 >
The NCAE didnt seem to make a noise when Perdue was there.
So true, Angie. Perdue took .5 percent back and furloughed us. BOTH parties have let teachers feel under siege. It’s very frustrating.
McCrory just suddenly realized that teachers can vote. That realization has not come Mr. Berger’s way as of yet, though a lot of teachers reside in his district…in fact, education is now one of the top employers in Rockingham County since the closure of most major industries there.
the bigger problem in nc is mccrory is governor but art pope is the king creep, of the state so before anyone can give a statement they have to clear it through their god pope. they’re in for a big surprise in 2014. it’s starting already. look who swept the elections.
Write on Ken
The issue will never be what McCrory or any other politician does or doesn’t realize. The issue is what THE VOTERS realize. Until public school teachers themSELVES realize that THEY can’t rationally be Republicans, NOTHING will change for the better.
please come out of your reality haze and realize the republicans are no good thieves.
Reality Haze? Interesting choice of words considering your comment. Republicans and Democrats alike are thieves and not even a blind man would think otherwise at this point.
i’m not blind buy i guess you are.
What are you, 5?
no 6
I think otherwise and it is you and not I who are blind if you think they’re the same.
Or even equally thieving. Democrats are not trying to steal Social Security, for starters.
All politicians are the same. When you watch both major parties from the side lines you see that. Half the time you can take a left leaning article or report, switch the party and find the exact same thing on the right. The angry “Democrats are better, no Republicans are better” infighting bullshit is exactly what the government wants on both sides. It’s not about crossing party lines for either side, it’s about cementing their own future with our tax dollars and ensuring the general public is otherwise occupied so as not to notice. Democrats are famous for using the race card to keep people preoccupied with other things. Ever notice that when we have a Democrat in office racism seems to be on the rise? Use your heads and think for yourselves. Quite playing into the party lines, it’s all a game.
Lets not lump all the GOP together here. I’m sure some of them aren’t just in it for the money. That sort of statement can be said of any political party. Just because someone claims political affiliation with one party means absolutely nothing about their true nature. Look at Jason Thigpen as a perfect example.
Jeremy, I didn’t mean that the GOP is all about personal financial gain, but that most of the time they put fiscal issues ahead of human issues.
Well, JEEZ, TM, you SHOULD have meant that. *I* certainly mean that.
They are also all about bigotry. Of course, if you vote Republican and make UNDER $100K/yr, well, it’s not about YOUR personal financial gain. But it’s certainly about SOMEbody’s.
Given our current financial issues, maybe we are focused too much on the “human issues” and not enough on the financial. There is no reason for the country to be trillions of dollars in debt, ever. History has proven that a large portion of people will not work if they can sustain on handouts and freebies. In America we have a large portion of people who can work, but don’t because the freebies are just easier. Let them starve a little and they’ll start finding jobs or creating businesses. When people get desperate they start getting very creative. Currently the number of people getting government assistance outnumbers those working to keep the money moving. Not saying that everyone on assistance shouldn’t be, but a lot of them don’t need to be and we definitely shouldn’t have a 1.07:1 assistance to working ratio.
OF COURSE we lump them all together — THEY VOTE all together.
They all voted to trash voting rights. And Jason Thigpen won’t even COUNT as one of “they” OR as one of “we” until&unless he wins an election.
Currently the GOP is a lot more monolithic than we are. Mike McIntyre would be running
and winning as a Republican in most places.
No one has trashed voting rights. They’ve simply been secured in the hope of reducing the number of dead democrat voters. If you can’t get a state issued ID card or drivers license you’re simply lazy or ignorant. It might even have the awesome side effect of reducing low information voters so we can get rid of the crap that’s been instituted since Obama took office. America is about small, limited government, not massive welfare programs and huge police states. Get your freebies on someone else’s tax dollars. I don’t believe in redistribution of wealth.
If you don’t believe in redistribution of wealth, then perhaps you should pave your own roads, educate your children in private academies, inspect your own food supply and guard your home, put in your own water and sewer, pay what it really costs for that hospital down the street, conduct your own research into diseases and cures and perhaps then you’ll be on your way to eliminating the redistribution of wealth.
That’s a very broad view of redistribution of wealth. I pay for water services and yes I paid the extra fees when county water lines were finally brought into my area so that I could have a water meter. I dug the ditches, I ran the water lines and I connected my own home. My children are homeschooled because of the garbage being taught in schools now. I pay local, state and federal taxes which go to the education system regardless. I’m paying my government to provide certain services. That is not redistribution of wealth, that is paying taxes to have a functional government that helps build a strong economy and infrastructure to further improve our way of life. I’m paying for that. All these drug dealers and moochers on welfare that don’t need to be are not paying for that. They will certainly vote for it though. They will vote for whatever allows them to continue their disgusting pathetic excuse for a life without doing anything productive for society. You obviously assume that I’m some overpaid republican that has no worries because I make more money than the average middle class. Guess what, I don’t. I make an average salary, I provide for my family of four and I live a normal life where I work hard for everything I have. It seems to be too much to ask for everyone else in America to do the same without getting a cut of my earnings in the process.
create more jobs