James D. Hogan, a former high school AP English teacher who now works for a liberal arts college in North Carolina, spells out the dramatic changes in his state over the past few years. He reaches a considered and dire conclusion: “North Carolina is waging war against public education.”
He describes in horrifying detail how the state legislature and Governor has systematically attacked the teaching profession, literally driving experienced teachers out of the state, and opened every possible avenue for privatization and profiteering.
At a time when public education is under attack in many states (often with the silent assent or the active approval of the Obama administration), North Carolina may well be the worst and meanest state in the nation.
In this brilliant article, Hogan writes:
Let me begin by saying that I am often no fan of hyperbole. We live in an era in which blog titles like this one are used as click bait, lures to entice–and, really, to enrage–readers and provide as little meat on the figurative bone as possible.
But I really mean it when I say this: North Carolina is waging war against public education.
From the rise of mega-testing companies and the policies that mandate them, to the widespread adoption of common curriculum, to the years of economic struggle following the Great Recession, public schools have endured substantial stress, and they may very well look substantially altered by the end of this decade. The biggest change? Public education is wholly political, evenly divided and polarized by factions on the left and right. What I call war, others may call a revolution.
Make no mistake, however. Our state is dismantling its public education system. And it didn’t have to be this way–the pathway that brought us here was paved with underfunded budgets, tactical strikes against public school teachers, fundamental changes in how charter schools operate and how tax dollars can go to private or religious schools, and the erosion of our hallowed University of North Carolina. In other words, not the failure of public education.
Why? That’s the question I most often found myself asking. Why would our state government work so hard to threaten public education? Who could have the audacity, or the political capital, to take on such an assault?….
When North Carolina Republicans took control of the state government in 2012, they quickly set into motion a sweeping agenda to enact conservative social reforms and, more importantly, vastly change how the state spends its money. It was the first time in more than a century that Republicans enjoyed such political dominance in our state.
What brought them all to town? A good reason: in the 2011-12 budget year, North Carolina projected a multi-billion dollar deficit, enough to rank the state among the worst budget offenders in the country and bring a new slate of elected legislators to Raleigh. So Republicans, with a clear mandate to clean up the fiscal mess in November 2012, set to work righting the ship.
What does a state like ours spend money on? Public education, including higher education, consumes about a third of North Carolina’s budget. Health and Human Services, including the state’s Medicaid and unemployment programs, composes an even larger slice, about 37.5 percent.
Other state programs make up little bits and pieces: nearly 8 percent on transportation and highways, 5.5 percent on public safety, 9 percent on natural and economic resources.
In other words, if you want to make big cuts, public education is one of two really big targets.
After that landslide election in 2012, legislators began sharpening their knives.
A Fury of Budget Cuts
Among their first targets: reductions in unemployment benefits, cuts to public schools, including laying off thousands of teachers, and a massive, nearly half-billion dollar slash from the University of North Carolina.
Two years later, in the last budget cycle, 2014-15, the legislature provided roughly $500 million less for education than schools needed.
Later in the 2013 session, though, the most radical changes in state financing fell into place. Republicans reconstructed the state’s tax code, relieving the burden on corporations and wealthy residents. They continued to take aim at other parts of the education budget, cutting More at Four program dollars and decreasing accessibility for poor families. The state lost thousands more teacher and teacher assistant positions. The bloodletting was fierce. More on that in a minute.
Across the state, local education districts were faced with budget deficits of considerable proportion after legislators hacked away their funding. School systems raided fund balances, rainy day funds set aside for things like natural disasters, not political ones. Elsewhere, employees were furloughed, teachers were laid off, teacher assistants were forced to take other jobs or lose their classroom positions, and so forth. Non-personnel funding disappeared. Textbooks stayed in circulation another year. Buildings were patched together instead of replaced. Education Week called ours “The Most Backward Legislature in America.”
Republicans defended these austerity measures by saying that lower taxes would eventually yield fiscal growth. And they were right. This year, the government is enjoying a $445 million surplus–a clear victory in light of those multi-billion dollar deficits of yore–but still a statistically small number in light of the state’s $21 billion budget (about two percent), especially after considering that our state budget is still smaller than it was in 2011.
In fact, by 2014-15, North Carolina was still spending $100 million less on public education than it had before the economic recession. And over the past ten years, public schools added more than 150,000 additional students. No Republican legislator can honestly say that per pupil expenditures across the state have increased in the last six years.
Taking Aim at Teachers
Curiously, the Republican-held capital didn’t stop at defunding education. They also took aim at teachers.
NC teachers are prohibited by law from unionizing, but they did have a common advocacy group in the North Carolina Association of Educators. In 2011, the legislature passed a law targeting how the group collects dues from member teachers. Then-Governor Bev Purdue vetoed it. In 2012, the law made its way back to Purdue, who vetoed again–but the House overrode it during a sneaky, late-night vote. (The law was later found to be discriminatory, retaliatory, and a violation of free speech and thrown out by state courts.)
But with teacher’s main advocacy group effectively muzzled, the legislature was free to run rampant, and teachers quickly came under fire.
Teacher salaries fell to 46th in the nation and worst in the south after five years with zero pay increases. And when Republicans finally acted to increase teacher pay, they claimed to make the biggest pay hike in state history–but in reality only bumped up paychecks by an average of $270 per year. When you factored inflation into the mix, teachers were losing money.
Meanwhile, Texas and Virginia started actively recruiting North Carolina teachers to go work in their states. It didn’t take much to convince Tarheel teachers to flee–especially after some teachers discovered they earned substantially less money than when they started thanks to inflation.
In case pitiful paychecks weren’t enough to deter teachers from returning to work, the legislature next took aim at teacher tenure. The Republican-led proposal initially was to eliminate tenure altogether, but eventually they came up with a plan that would grant teachers pay raises for giving up their career status. It was, as I wrote then, a clever way of getting rid of veteran teachers.
Eventually, that compromise became law, and teachers state-wide began the effort of figuring out if their career status or their retirement pension was more important–and once again, the court stepped in and overturned the law. Another legislative overreach corrected by the courts.
(This year, just for kicks, the NC Senate is proposing an end to teacher healthcare coverage in retirement. “That’s something that should have been done a long time ago,” state Rep. Gary Pendleton said.)
The assault didn’t stop with the assaults on new and tenured teachers. It continued on teacher preparation programs, including the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program.
The Teaching Fellows program was arguably one of the best teacher prep scholarships in the nation; it celebrated a better retention rate than its federal cousin, Teach For America, and it produced droves of quality teachers who filled hard-up school classrooms. Its budget was a modest one, and yet Republicans uprooted it from the state budget and killed the entire program.
This year, with its final class of scholars graduating college, the program officially flat-lined. State Teacher of the Year Keana Triplett called the legislature’s shuttering of the Teaching Fellows “the single biggest mistake in public education.”
The result? Enrollment in teacher prep programs in the UNC system has dropped 27 percent in the last five years. A teacher shortage is just around the corner.
First, weaken schools. Then print parents a ticket out–and into for-profit schools….
Let’s review. With an unassailable, veto-proof majority, North Carolina Republicans seized control of this state and unleashed a devastating blow to public schools.
They have systematically pared budgets to the bone. They have insulted, antagonized, and demoralized teachers through stingy salary offerings–and they’ve muted the organization that had for many years protected them.
Make no mistake: this is a war against public education. Teachers are losing. I have been reading and writing about education in North Carolina for several years now, and while it might not always appear obvious, our state has formed a cohesive and coordinated attack against public schools.
Public education is at risk. And with every measure–every budget cut, every insult, every weakening–our school house slides toward complete devastation.
– See more at: http://www.forum.jamesdhogan.com/2015/08/the-war-on-north-carolinas-public.html#sthash.hU8suCTK.dpuf
Do the people of North Carolina care? Do they believe in the idea of a public education system that is paid for through public funding and equally accessible to all of it’s citizens?
Sadly, I find most people agree that the education budget was bloated, teachers are lazy moochers who only work 10 mo a year and charters, home schooling and private school vouchers are going to save our children. It’s very disheartening to watch. My children are in public schools but we are in a very good area where parents are very involved and can make up for the funding shortfalls. I do not want to imagine what some of the schools in other districts have to deal with.
This happens when people in the private sector do not have protection during economic downturns. A participant at a board meeting in N. J. complained that her hisband did not have such benefits as did teachers. At that point I felt like asking her why he did not teach the, or why did he feel he deserved what he was receiving, or why he did not stand up for himself. There are always people who want everyone in the basement with them and fail to see the big picture: that someone else wants to keep them there believing somehow the wealth they have is entirely because of their own effort. I hear this from my Republican friends the time, never crediting their parents’ success, their government paid education, their
This happens when people in the private sector do not have protection during economic downturns. A participant at a board meeting in N. J. complained that her husband did not have such benefits as did teachers. At that point I felt like asking her why he did not teach then, or why did he feel he deserved what he was receiving, or why he did not stand up for himself.
There are always people who want everyone in the basement with them and fail to see the big picture: seeing that it serves someone else to keep them there, believing somehow the wealth they have is entirely because of their own effort.
I hear this from my Republican friends all the time, never crediting their parents’ success, their government paid education, their being in the right place at the right time (luck). And yes they worked hard and smart, but that effort is never the whole picture.
When Reagan was elected by the middle class who knew their position was because of the effort they had made compared to all those welfare mothers, I could see the middle class would be next. Now they would be the target having taken advantage of those public services and tax loopholes, not being job creators but receiving benefits!
The middle class is now the “bottom percent” in a free trade economy. The U. S. Will have to become a third world in order to maintain profits for corporations.
It’s tough because it will continue until public school parents engage on it. You saw it with testing. Nothing happened until parents started refusing the tests.
Politicians have to be held accountable in their districts, with damage done to specific, named, existing public schools. They will not change direction until a couple of them lose their seats over this. I guarantee you these lawmakers are making campaign stops at public schools in their districts vowing their love and eternal support, because that’s what Ohio lawmakers do. We had a Kasich administration representative in my district last spring boasting about how much Governor Kasich loves public schools. There was NONE of the anti-public school rhetoric, teacher bashing and promotion of charter and private schools we see on a statewide and national level. Public school parents are quite literally hearing a different message from these people locally. It’s night and day.
Nope! We never see politicians in our schools. They pander to everyone but teachers. The horrifying part is that parents listen to the teacher bashing and it’s been so constant for so long, many parents believe them and are scrambling to get their kids into charters, private schools or homeschooling. When all they ever hear is that we have failing schools and teachers are just greedy, liberal mouthpieces, with no way for them to hear or observe anything to the contrary, one can hardly blame them. The politicians make statements about how terrible the schools are then use those statements as justification for defunding them. One of our former local school board members was actually also on the board of a private school IN OUR DISTRICT! No one seemed to think this was a conflict of interest. The propaganda is being swallowed whole without anyone questioning it. I’m terrified for our state’s education system.
Thanks. You sound like a parent/teacher, though, so maybe that’s a little different.
These are visits to public schools meant to specifically target public school parents- in my state that’s 90% of parents so it’s kind of a no-brainer for a state or federal politician to show up and vow their eternal support of our “youngsters” 🙂
The disconnect in the rhetoric is sort of fascinating, in a horrible way. One of our newest privatizers in Columbus sounds like a completely different person when he’s speaking locally. Public school parents here don’t know because they don’t follow his crusade in the statehouse.
I don’t know if this is encouraging or not, but Ohio has had the Bush-Obama version of ed reform longer than many states- we’re on 17 years here- and there IS pushback. It took forever for it to reach a tipping point but this stuff is no longer accepted as gospel. The whole tone has changed in this state. We get critical analysis of ed reform almost daily from in-state media. That may happen in your state too. It takes a long time.
Not all of them.
Brian Turner and John Ager in Western NC are excellent and visit schools all the time.
They beat the odds last election and replaced two Republicans, one of whom is big in ALEC.
There are pockets of good and hope.
Same thing happening in Los Angeles County, second largest district in the nation and the one with the greatest diversity and poverty, where the print media is totally on the side of the privatizers, and they laud the charter schools as being so much better than public schools, and they bash the union.
We have Eli Broad (and his puppets, Ben Austin and John Deasy) and Michael Milken, many hedge funders, et al, as residents in our 1% wealthy community, so their voices are heard beyond the public voices which include informed activists and parents to save public education.
LA Weekly, a yellow throw-away rag, today published a glowing article about an inner city school that defies the union and the district in using Common Core and teacher cooperation to define their success. They regularly report only on charters they say are doing well.
We are all becoming No. Carolina.
Giving credit where it is due…today in the LA Times, there are two excellent letters to the editor responding to the Times recent
pro parent trigger editorial. Both of these letters are anti parent trigger and explain why it is a failed law.
Same scenario in all States, mobilized by ALEC-Qaida …
Campbell Brown’s site is promoting this school grading tool that was developed by some lobbying group. You can plug in your school and see the “grade” given to the school by the lobbying group. I think the intent was we would all be horrified and immediately put the schools up for sale or whatever, but it had the reverse effect on me. I plugged in some local schools and thought – boy, these schools are really resilient, considering they’ve gotten zero support from federal and state lawmakers over the past 15 years and have been the victims of what amounts to a national anti-public school political campaign.
I’m not sure we need these federal and state lawmakers at all, really. Our schools seem to be soldiering on without them, purely on local support. If the intent was I would turn to DC or Columbus and beg the ed reform “movement” for help it had the opposite effect. I’m now not sure their “help” is worth the cost.
https://www.the74million.org/article/new-website-sets-out-to-grade-70000-american-schools-using-same-standards-want-to-see-how-yours-ranked
As a young naive man, I read National Review, watched Firing Line, nodded in agreement with Friedman and Laffer, and marched to the free market goosestep. I studied business for an MBA, but during my studies and indoctrination by the mostly Randian professors, I had a few who challenged the system and raised questions, almost as heretics. The more I studied the Republican’s version of capitalism, the more it was clear something was fundamentally flawed and the system was failing. In class, I called out the Emperor had no clothes, but often other students seemed disinterested or already blind zealots to the invisible hand. So LTCM failed, followed by Reaganomics, firing air traffic controllers, outsourcing, the Great Recession – death by a thousand cuts to the middle class had begun. Any rational person would stop and question what is wrong with the system in the face of the bank bailouts and growing inequality. Apparently, only a few economists such as Krugman and Baker are able to do this. The general public seems to be living in a Matrix like goo having taken the blue pill.
Replace North Carolina with Ohio and you see a well-coordinated effort to destroy teachers and schools. Kasich, while not saying he wanted to punch teachers in the face ala Christie, vowed in his first election to “break the backs” of teachers – no less of a perverse violent fantasy. The Ohio VAM-based teacher evaluation system is a joke. Teachers are demonized at every turn by people never having stepped foot in a classroom. Pensions are eroded.
Never letting a good crisis go to waste, the anti-education Republicans in Ohio cut school funding which still has not recovered. Kasich DID create a surplus and rainy day fund, but the tax burden was simply shifted from the wealthy to the middle class and local governments. In a delicious irony, the libertarian CATO institute called out Kasich’s funny budget numbers. Apparently, Kasich criticized Strickland for using Federal money to balance the state budget during the Great Recession, so now Kasich is using Federal money as part of HIS budget to claim he is responsible on spending. In reality, all these Republicans do it shift government spending from schools and the middle class to corporations and the well-connected wealthy. Wake up, Neo.
You have written a beautiful indictment of what has gone wrong in public education from the Republican perspective. In addition to destructive tendencies of conservatives, many liberals have joined in the hunt to destroy public education. They have wandered so far from their populist message that it difficult to tell the neo-liberals from the conservatives as they both worship at the alter of Wall St.
AGGGGGH! Liberal conservative, progressive, labels. labels labels and absurd opinions post as if they resemble reality. Yeah the GOP wants public education to enable a thinking, well skilled population. LOL!
Once again, Mathvale, you call it out clearly. Thank you. But I urge everyone to still read National Review and the other positions on the Right so as to understand what they purport, and to be able to refute them. If we read only what we already believe, we cannot be effective activists to preserve public education against the onslaught of the wealth oriented privatizers.
We may be able to refute them better with more facts, but, frankly, the only “facts” I have seen from most conservatives are distortions, denials of reality or big, old lies.
Yes. Good point. I should keep reading more. It is just difficult to find conservative publications that present rational thought without extremism, blind ideology, and talking points.
Re-posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/North-Carolina-Wages-War-A-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_Education_Education_Profession-150806-809.html#comment557543
with this comment whites embedded links
“TheKoch Brothers get to write curriculum here, and they can’t wait to get their hands on the rest of the nation, so what our future citizens will know is what they want them to know. E.D. Hirsh says that democracy depends on shared knowledge…. the oligarchs know this, and they share their own version of our history.
The big money controls the media and and our election process, already, so when they take over the schools, and it is really over for us.
Submitted on Thursday, Aug 6, 2015 at 9:56:44 AM
Reblogged this on History Chick in AZ and commented:
North Carolina may be one of the worst cases, but what is happening in NC is happening in other Republican-controlled states. If you care about public education please read James D. Hogan’s description of the state of education in NC.
Deb…Even happening in Dem controlled states like California.
From here in AZ, CA looks sane. I hope they haven’t been as draconian as in places like AZ, NC, and Wisconsin! Thanks for letting me know!
As a high school English teacher in NC, I can certainly attest that North Carolina teachers care and care deeply. We simply do not know what to do or how to organize, and many teachers fear retribution. Teachers are held hostage by the political system, and many have developed Stockholm syndrome. Our State Constitution has been violated with full knowledge of the politicians.
It is not just education that is a victim of this war; it is our society as we have known it. Public education has been the sustaining influence of the American dream. Every year, public schools have graduated responsible citizens. If the signs of the times are being read correctly, the political system (probably both parties) would like to dismantle public education and the American dream. If a student is home-schooled, charter-schooled, private-schooled, or otherwise schooled in a non-public way using taxpayers dollars, the end result will be a new America. The United States will become a system of government by wealth, for wealth, and of wealth. The estimates are that the cost of running for President in 2016 will be upwards of 5 billion dollars.
Teachers in North Carolina and in every state need to mobilize, to network, to gain confidence in themselves to tilt every race in the state assemblies and Congress. If teachers all over the United States would vote only for those people who will vote for public education, regardless of political affiliation, we would start a reform movement that would put education in the hands of the most important people in this war, the teachers and students!
Harriet Baker
It is more difficult to organize in a “right to be fired” state. Without due process rights, the state holds the power. If the parents support the destruction of public education, you are at a further disadvantage. Perhaps you can look for some civil rights violations or state laws or actions that violate civil rights, and you might be able to get some free advice from the Southern Poverty Law Center. That is all I can think of, but I wish you well in your struggles. It is such a pity because NC had one of the better reputations for education in the south.
Excellent comment, Harriet. It is happening rapidly, and nationwide. Teachers and parents must fight back NOW.
This is pretty funny:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/newarks-new-schools-chief-seeks-civility-1438822130
Newark’s new school chief seeks “civility”. This is the person who works for the governor who wants to punch people in the face, right? The governor who said public school teachers were like “drug mules” and was nationally hailed by the ed reform “movement” as a leader? That just all goes down the rabbit hole of ed reform, never to be mentioned again. What can people possibly think when they hear this “civility” stuff? There is NO connection between the reality and actions. None.
LOL. Jon Stewart couldn’t have don it better! Gosh…I will miss him!
narcissism
I have worked in the NC public schools for almost a quarter of a century and am extremely disheartened by how the public schools are treated by our state politicians. I can tell you morale is very low among teachers though they do their best and work nights and weekends lesson planning, grading, and making sure the endless paperwork of accountability is up to date. The majority of students in our school system officially come from poor families who can’t make ends meet. The faculty continually takes up donations of money and food for these struggling families. The funding for supplies for the schools is pretty much non-existent and teachers often purchase these supplies themselves. There has been no money from the school system for library books for at least five years. These are the only books many of our children have access to since many don’t access the public library some ten miles away. Students and teachers are stressed out and on edge. Administrators are constantly patrolling with walk throughs and observations. Of course, they are under constant stress to improve test scores. Don’t get me started on the almighty test scores and our not so benevolent overlord Pearson. I am on medication to help with anxiety and depression and I know it is because of work. Most teachers fear speaking out because they need their jobs but it just makes for a sad situation. I am not so sure how much longer I can handle it, but no one really cares. They can just replace me with a younger, cheaper teacher.
Try to focus on your work and block the things our of your mind you can’t control. Try to hang in there and hope the tide will turn.
Thanks. I am trying to stay somewhat positive and try to helps the students as much as I can.
Kim, I have heard that a lot of our local educators are now taking meds to try to maintain their hold on their sanity. It is so sad to give so much of oneself only to be disparaged, belittled, deprecated, and otherwise demoralized by people who should and probably do know better. We are public servants not public scapegoats.
Things have gone down he sewer here in North Carolina and there will be a reckoning but it may be too late.
Stay strong.
Thanks. I suspect a good many folks are using medication to cope in the schools now with the more stressful conditions.
Excellent work. Thank you for taking the time to write.
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2014/05/north-carolina-to-teachers-please-go.html
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Friday, May 30, 2014
North Carolina To Teachers: “F#@! Off”
There are several state legislatures that are working hard to earn the “Worst Legislature in America” medal. Florida, where it’s cool to use terminally ill children as political tools and their families as punching bags, has always been a strong contender. New York State staked its claim by taking the extraordinary measure of overruling local government because they didn’t like its decision. Several states have worked to promote the teaching profession by stripping it of any professional trappings like decent pay and job security.
But when it comes to suck, North Carolina is a tough state to beat.
The legislature tried to make tenure go away entirely, but was frustrated to discover that they could not legally revoke tenure for people who already had it. But the wily legislators realized that they had a unique piece of leverage in a state where teachers’ real-dollar wages have dropped every year for seven years.
The proposal is simple. NC teachers can have a raise, or they can have job security. They cannot have both.
They may have a raise. And who knows? Some day they might get another one. But they can also be fired for being too expensive. Or they can have job security, but Senate Leader Phil Berger warns that they will probably never see another raise again.
The message is as clear as it is simple:
North Carolina legislators do not want teaching to be a career in their state.
If you want to devote your career, your lifetime of work, to teaching, you cannot do it in North Carolina.
If you want to support a family, live like a grown-up, experience a lifetime of success teaching students, you cannot do it in North Carolina.
We often talk about how a state “destroys” or “ruins” teaching as a profession, but often that’s a bit of exaggeration and what we really mean is that they make it very, very hard to stay in teaching. But North Carolina proposes to actually do it– to actually make teaching untenable as a career for self-supporting grown-ups. This goes past disrespect; this is demolition.
There is no upside in this for North Carolina. None. There is no benefit for a state that drives the most qualified teachers away. There is no benefit for a state system that becomes the system of last resort (Motto: Come see us if nobody else will hire you for a real job). There is no plus in telling new job applicants, “We intend to screw you over as a matter of policy.” There is no benefit to students being taught by teachers who are working three jobs to make ends meet (“Sorry, but I won’t be grading your papers until I get a night off from Piggly Wiggly”). There is no benefit to school environments when a state tells students, “Nobody needs to treat teachers with respect.” There is no benefit for a state to tell its young people, “Hey, if you want to be a teacher when you grow up, y’all are gonna need to get the hell out of here.”
There’s plenty of benefit for other folks, kind of like the benefit of having one less hungry family show up for buffet night at Pizza Hut. Virginia can continue its teacher recruitment program (“Hey teachers! We’re not great, but we sure as hell aren’t North Carolina”). And I suppose this makes North Carolina a perfect staging area for TFA bodies
My heart goes out to people in North Carolina. If it were the place I was born and bred, I would be sadder than words can say, sad that my own people wanted to trash our state, sad that they want to actively discourage good teachers from working there, sad that they had zero interest in trying to get the best possible system in place for their children. Hell, I’m not from NC and it still makes me pretty sad.
So kudos to you, NC legislature. Tomorrow may bring new assaults on education from a different assortment of political twits, but for today, you are, in fact, the worst legislature in all of America.
Well stated Jack. We have gone from being the Tarheel State to the Stepped in Dog Sh*t State – up to our knees.
In 1967 folIowing a year in VISTA, I was asked to consider staying in rural N. C. and teach. The salary was $4,700a year, about a thousand less than I had earned in Michigan for the 1965-1966 scool year. I moved to NYC instead and earned $9,000. I did not need a car and had a rent controlled first with roomates
roommates and later with a spouse. I was better off financially working in the East Bronx than in N. C. and just as needed
(Sorry about the split. Using an iphone.
Ouch…West Coast…I did a educational research study on reading in the East Bronx in about 1974 -5. Feared for my life. My research partner taught me how to walk with my keys between my fingers so that if I was about to be mugged, I should aim for the muggers eyes. Was SO relieved to get back to California. Isn’t education an amazing profession.
BTW…as I remember, I was making about $12 an hour (with two advanced university degrees), and I got $30 a day per diem to cover three meals. The NGO paid for my room at Howard Johnson’s where I slept with my clothes on sitting a chair which was less disgusting than the bed. Golden memories.
Ellen
I am not surprised at your fear. A teacher I met in a class at City and who taught in a high school was so badly beaten she was still in bandages and crutches the next year. I taught in a middle school but found a job in N. J. when the layoffs began during the financial debacle. In spite of the difficulties, I have a lot of good memories and friends from those few years.
This is a clarion call that actually began at the federal level with A Nation at Risk in 1983. Later, the “No Child Left Behind” legislation of the Bush administration created a perfect storm of public education defunding under the guise of “accountability.” This has been an intentional process driven by those who believe that privatization is a virtue and that content should be controlled to maintain a particular world view. Most of the South and Midwest is experiencing a massive reduction in public school funding. My current state, Alabama, has reduced education spending by %17 since 2008 and is currently going into the education trust fund to counter a $250,000,000.00 shortfall for 2015-16. This brazen attack is not on the public schools, but on the democratic social contract that requires we educate our citizenry. Education has become the convenient tool used to subsidize wealthy interests through massive tax cuts. This bill will come due and the price will be catastrophic.