It seems the North Carolina legislature is still failing to give its teachers any love, as we can see by this contribution from a North Carolina educator:
The N.C. Senate this evening started rolling out portions of its proposed budget, however we are still awaiting some of the details. Here is what we know right now.
- The Senate proposal will not make a dent in our dismal per-pupil spending and average teacher pay national rankings.
- Students and schools will be heavily impacted by the decimation of the state’s teacher assistants. According to reports, the Senate plans to cut more than 13,000 teacher assistants over two years. So much for the Senate’s job creation budget!
- Once again the Senate is shortchanging experienced teachers by giving them smaller, or in some cases, the most veteran teachers, no raise. The Senate also did not include restoring master’s pay as did the House budget.
- At a time when we are at the bottom of the heap in education, Senators used a $400 million surplus for the Rainy Day Fund instead of investing in education.
- Only $29 million in additional funding for textbooks and digital resources, the lowest of the three budget proposals.
- The Senate did include a proposal to reduce class size, but we are still trying to crunch the numbers and understand what it really will mean for schools.
- $6.8 million for private school vouchers.
Quite the dismal proposal. I wonder how many of the legislatures legislators have children in the school system?
(Updated to insert a missing word. And again..)
