Petition used to seek pay increase for North Carolina teachers
Public school advocates in North Carolina have a petition with 61,000 signatures seeking to increase teacher pay to the national average.
According to the National Education Association’s ranking from 2012-2013, the average North Carolina teacher salary is around $46,000, 46th in the U.S. The nation’s average salary is over $55,000.
Events were held earlier this week in Asheville, Waynesville and Black Mountain to emphasize the push for higher pay for the states teachers.
North Carolina lawmakers are discussing a pay raise for teachers, but the proposals vary and if approved, will result in some changes for teachers beyond just an increase in their paycheck. The A.N.C. Senate proposal states that teacher’s assistants would be cut and tenure would be lost too. The House version would keep teachers assistants, but give the teachers a smaller raise.
Gerrick Brenner of Progress North Carolina, one of the groups involved in the Aim Higher Now petition says advocates aren’t seeking the pay raise in a single year, but instead over the next four or five years.
Parent Misty Miller attended the event on Monday. She says, “I came out today to support our teachers. I would like to see our teachers be treated as professionals.”
“When you think of that you don’t think of someone who is worried about paying their bills or is worried yearly about whether or not they have employment security.”
Many teachers in this country are grossly underpaid. I like to see parents of students and other school advocates joining forces to see an increase in pay for North Carolina’s teachers, some of the lowest paid in the country. I hope these hard working teachers see some additional compensation in the next few years. Unfortunately, if the elimination of teacher’s assistants takes effect, the raise in pay still comes with a price tag attached.
Yep. . . if North Carolina teachers expects a pay raise, then it will come out of the districts budget in other ways. Maybe it will be teacher assistants or bus drivers and bus routes. Somebody is going to have to pay for these pay raises.
I wonder, what is the average pay rate in North Carolina for all jobs requiring a college education? If they looked at those rates instead of national averages that don’t take into account cost of living in different regions, would North Carolina’s teacher pay be all that bad?
State legislatures have to balance their budgets, and the state education system is a big piece of that budget. This means that an increase in teacher salaries could literally result in less road and bridge repair in the state highway system with impact on safety for all that use the road system, or less dollars available for medicaid and health & welfare funding for the most needy in society. There is a reason why North Carolina lawmakers are having discussion and working through various proposals – they’re working for equitiable solutions with limited resources. In some states, education’s slice of the budget is a third or more of the overall pie. Teachers need to assist in finding long-term solutions within the funding already available from the state, not just whine about national averages, complain that they need higher salaries, and abuse their access to students and families to petition for more money. If they can’t, maybe the legislature will consider online education delivery as a more cost-effective alternative.