RALEIGH (May 2, 2024) – In a state where 10,000+ teachers – 11.5% – left its public schools in 2023,1 Gov. Roy Cooper proposed a budget last week to rebuild North Carolina’s teacher pipeline.
But will Republican state legislators listen?
Good luck with that.
Instead, they’re in love with vouchers funded by taxpayers to subsidize students who attend private schools.2
As legislators return to Raleigh (some via Louisville,3 apparently) for their so-called “short” session with a projected revenue surplus of $1.4 billion, Cooper’s budget proposal would give K-12 public school teachers an average raise of 8.5%. And it would grant teachers and other state employees a retention bonus of $1,000 to $1,500.4
North Carolina schools started the current year with 3,500 teaching vacancies – and an increasing reliance on uncertified teachers.5
New data released this week by the National Education Association show that average teacher pay in North Carolina slipped to 38th nationally last year. While average teacher pay increased 3.1% in North Carolina in 2022-23, it increased 4.1% nationwide.6
The NEA data show North Carolina increased its rank in starting teacher pay slightly – from 46th to 42nd – with average starting pay of $40,136.
But that’s still $3,500 less than Alabama pays its teachers and $6,000 less than Virginia.7
Other states seem to love their teachers more.
Cooper’s budget would:
- Make starting teacher pay in North Carolina the highest in the Southeast at $47,500, including local supplements.
- Restore an additional bump in pay for more than 1,000 teachers with master’s degrees in the subjects they teach.
- Devote $35 million to expand the state’s Read to Achieve program – based on the science of reading – through middle school.
- Add 700 teacher assistants in grades K-3. It would use $45 million to hire 575 additional school counselors, nurses, social workers and psychologists.
- Propose $2.5 billion in bonds for 90 new elementary and middle schools (to be approved by referendum).
- Expand the Teaching Fellows program to cultivate new teachers in more subject areas.8
NORTH CAROLINA VOTERS overwhelmingly support bigger raises for public school teachers. A poll last month for Public Ed Works found that:
- 65% of the state’s voters think public K-12 schools are underfunded; and
- 78% say K-12 public school teachers should be paid more than the 3% raise they are currently scheduled to get in 2024-25.9
Meanwhile, House Speaker Tim Moore has proposed using $300 million of the surplus revenue to increase state support for taxpayer-funded vouchers for students to attend private school.10
The Public School Forum of North Carolina calculates that the $300 million Moore proposes for vouchers could otherwise supply an additional 4% raise for public school teachers.11
LEGISLATIVE LEADERS’ responses to Cooper’s proposal were typically frosty.
“There may be some things there that we can work with. There are probably a lot of things that we won’t be able to work with,” said state Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham.
“We are going to, I anticipate, work on budget adjustments that will keep us within a growth factor that recognizes population growth and inflation. In order to do that, I don’t know that we can go as far as what the governor is talking about – whether we’ll do any of those things,” he said.
Berger said legislative leaders don’t want to spend the surplus on recurring raises, but might consider a one-time bonus.
Cooper, conversely, calls for a moratorium on increases in private school vouchers paid for by taxpayers.
Legislators “can choose desperately needed investments to educate our children and our workforce, along with tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses. Or they can choose tax giveaways for corporations and the wealthy and keep robbing taxpayer money from public schools to fund private school vouchers,” he said.
In a brazen expansion of the state’s voucher program last year, legislators removed any income limits on which students can receive vouchers – even if they already attend a private school.
“Right now, Republican legislative leaders are promising to give away hundreds of millions more just to make sure that the wealthier North Carolinians can pick up their government checks for children that they already have in private school,” Cooper said.12
MEANWHILE, THE CHILD-CARE INDUSTRY is also in crisis.13
More than 25% of NC child-care centers closed between 2016 and 2021. With expiration of federal COVID-relief funds on July 1, another 1,778 centers serving 155,539 children are projected to close if they don’t receive help replacing the federal funds, according to the governor’s proposal.
Cooper’s proposal makes a clear connection between child care, the workforce and the ability of businesses to function.
“These investments provide early childhood education for young children, while allowing parents to work and businesses to hire for the jobs they need to fill,” it says.
Cooper proposes $745 million to support early childhood care, including $200 million in stabilization grants to centers to help offset the loss of federal funds. Cooper says the measures would help centers recruit and retain staff, who make an average of $13 an hour, when federal funds expire.
The governor proposes:
- $128 million to increase child-care subsidies, especially in rural and poor counties;
- $197 million in reimbursement increases for NC Pre-K centers;
- $50 million in child-care enhancement grants; and
- $26 million for additional salary supplements for 4,000 pre-school teachers.
BEYOND TEACHERS, the governor’s budget would provide at least a 5% raise for all state-funded employees, including those at public universities and community colleges.
And it would award retention bonuses of $1,500 for employees making $75,000 or less, and $1,000 for those making more than $75,000.
The proposal notes a vacancy rate of 22.6% in state positions in December 2023, compared with 12.5% before the pandemic. First-year state employees had a turnover rate of 32.8% in 2023, while state employees overall had a turnover rate of 13.7%.
“A major challenge to hiring and retaining the state’s workforce is low wages and decreasing purchasing power as prices outstrip legislative increases,” the proposal says.
The cost of goods and services has jumped an average of 5.6% a year over past three years, while state employee raises have averaged 3.3% a year over the same period.
As a result, the governor recommends $196 million for a reserve for recruitment and retention of state employees in hard-to-fill positions.14
The governor’s recommendations are quite reasonable in a state facing an education crisis.
But will legislators listen?
1 https://www.wral.com/story/nc-teacher-turnover-hits-highest-mark-in-decades-new-report-shows-changes-in-who-is-leading-classrooms/21361469/; https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article287290125.html; https://www.wunc.org/education/2024-04-03/north-carolina-data-teacher-turnover-vacancies-rise.
2 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article288181875.html.
3 https://www.wral.com/story/bourbon-tour-scandal-overblown-says-conservative-group/21407054/.
4 https://www.osbm.nc.gov/governors-budget-rec-fy2024-25/download.
5 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article278765479.html.
6 https://www.nea.org/resource-library/educator-pay-and-student-spending-how-does-your-state-rank/teacher.
7 https://www.nea.org/resource-library/educator-pay-and-student-spending-how-does-your-state-rank/starting-teacher.
8 https://www.osbm.nc.gov/governors-budget-rec-fy2024-25/download.
9 https://publicedworks.org/2024/04/nc-voters-pay-teachers-better/.
10 https://www.wunc.org/politics/2024-04-10/nc-house-speaker-tim-moore-300-million-private-school-vouchers-all-income-levels.
11 https://www.wral.com/story/mary-ann-wolf-n-c-legislators-will-soon-spend-1-billion-surplus-public-schools-must-be-a-priority/21396128/.
12 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article287776985.html.
13 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article287691150.html.
14 https://www.osbm.nc.gov/governors-budget-rec-fy2024-25/download.
Leave a Reply