Dr. June Atkinson, the state superintendent of instruction in North Carolina, said, ““For the first time in my career of more than 30 years in public education, I am truly worried about students in our care.”
Lindsay Wagner summarizes the damage done to public education by the North Carolina legislature:
It cut more than $500 million from the state’s public schools.
It passed a voucher program to allow students to take public money to private and religious schools.
And more:
The 2013-15 biennial budget introduces a raft of spending cuts to public schools that will result in no raises for teachers, larger class sizes, fewer teacher assistants, little support for instructional supplies or professional development, and what could amount to the dismantling of the North Carolina Teaching Fellows program. Teachers can also say goodbye to tenure and supplemental pay for advanced degrees.
Wagner asks, “Is this the beginning of the end for public education in North Carolina?”
The privatization movement is in full swing in North Carolina. What was once the most progressive state in the South is now leading the attack on public education. For the first time since Reconstruction, the governorship and both houses of the Legislature are in the hands of Republicans, and these are not moderate Republicans who want to preserve a strong public education system. These are radical privatizers who want to send public monies to private schools, religious schools, and entrepreneurs.
The governor’s education advisor, Eric Guckian, is a Teach for America alum. TFA won $5.1 million in the new budget.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
NC is toast, so is Detroit and so many other city’s school systems. I think the full out assault is in action. Robbing the public pensions might happen like a prairie fire. The rest of the destruction of public schools seems to also be gaining momentum. How do you see the future year’s events?
Reblogged this on Politics From The Middle and commented:
Right now every Monday, a group called Moral Monday, is protesting peacefully and being arrested just for exercising their right of free speech. We all must stand together as the negative forces of anti-public education are marching forward.
REM
“That’s me in the corner. That’s me in the spotlight loosin’ my religion.” (Not really, but these are Job-like times for public school supporters.
——
My my. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
I have ideas. But I am just a lowly music teacher in the western part of the state (albeit I did graduate from a college few of our politicians would ever have gotten into).
What to do?
Teach music. Smile. Model resourcefulness. Raise my children.
Except Anthony Foxx. He went there too. Anthony once told me when he heard me sing his heart jumped out of his chest.
Maybe I should go sing to him and see if he can catch Obama’s ear on education.
I can be the education siren.
What better way to teach our students the value of an education than by telling teachers that their education has no value! They are going to need all of those TFA recruits to fill their classrooms after passing such anti-teacher legislation. http://kafkateach.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/go-north-but-not-to-north-carolina/
It is all bad news for North Carolina but the loss of teaching assistants and the increase in class sizes are the most egregious examples of our toxic situation. This is purely an assault on education, educators, and students.
My school has well over 90% free and reduced lunch students and minorites are the majority there. The students need every support person that can be pulled in to help them become successful. Our TAs are invaluable, I hope their jobs can be salvaged.
Children deserve only the best and the state is behaving reprehensibly.
and while TFA gets dough, of course, one casualty of the budget is the the much lauded NC Teachers Fellows Program, which trained real teachers in real 4 year stints after college (and converted their loans into grants after the 4 years) and had a 70+% retention rate. Sad but true.
see also http://bit.ly/11fOGkO
Low SES public schools are ignored and overlooked. Hiring TFA-ers at two year intervals causes more instability. http://ward8teacher.wordpress.com/
About the only thing good these republicans did was fund our retirement system. After that it is all bad news for NC teachers and students. This is the worst I’ve seen. Hopi. NCAE grows a pair, and I t hink they have begun bucking. It’s time to go on offense. What good is NCAE without tenure?
Check out this you tube clip from NCAE
What good did it do? So what if they were arrested and plastic handcuffed!
ME, I have the same question. The membership will continue to decline. The General Assembly knows very well that NCAE will lose members without “tenure”.
I am truly devastated to tears when reading NC Policy watch.
The Raleigh man-crushing on Jeb Bush sure is costing NC a lot. Idolatry is the worst offense to humanity. These men have made idols of themselves and of each other.
Our state needs to understand ALEC.
My husband assures me this is politics. It will come back around. These idiots will not be reelected.
I hope he is right. I pray he is right.
My husband said the same thing. I am still worried.
Joanna, it is politics at its worse. We need to elect people who are for public education regardless of party affiliation. I really believe your husband is correct. It will take time, but it will come back around.
I was clearly upset when I typed this.
Let me rephrase and not call names. These people who do not see the value of public education as part of a democratic republic the same way I do are causing great unrest by balancing an otherwise not so bad budget on the backs of teachers and students once again.
And it is true I do not believe dollars follow children. That is counterintuituve, in my opinion, for how a collective pool of money on behalf of the electorate is best utilized.
I am going to take a break from blogging for a while.
Your clarity and directness is always bracing. I must say I simply disagree that a public education is an essential part of a democratic republic. I believe that the education mandated by each state’s constitution is for the benefit of each individual to enable them to be productive members of society, and thus it can be legitimate for the money to follow the child. On the contrary I find it counterintuitive that the collective pool of education money must only be spent on a state run exclusive system of free schools. The only political justification for a state operated system seems to be that it forces all young people to deal with each other as a preparation for workplace and political democracy. But I do not believe that a monopoly public education system is the ONLY method of inculcating a love a freedom and opportunity supported by democratic means. I believe people can still live positively in a democratic republic without the specific initiation of a monopoly public school system. It must be so, because those will money can live their entire lives in a private school environment and yet still embrace the ideal of the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution. In fact, in some aspects, the public monopoly school system operates counter to democratic values by imposing itself on a citizenry. The essence of American values IS choice, freedom, the chance to chose a life for oneself. As a nation we do indeed want to be e pluribus unum in the defense of our freedom, but we do not have to have a public schooling template as a model for that. It is the manyness that must be defended from homogenization. One nation [under God], but not one school system.
Diane, others,
How many of you understand the problems NC has? Its easy to point to education ‘cuts’, which do NOT decrease spending or layoffs teachers.
You should be more concerned with urban schools which are failing its children not NC will is doing something to strengthen education,
There is a ideological difference be Democrats and the Republican leadership. DEMs believe funding per student belongs to the school, while REPs believe the money should “follow the child”
@ajbruno – “How many of you understand the problems NC has? Its easy to point to education ‘cuts’, which do NOT decrease spending or layoffs teachers.”
I believe I know the “problems” quite well – I have taught here for 15 years. It started with Perdue and her ilk sacrificing ethics for the glamor of winning the RttT money.
Now we’ve got radical repubs in office, that act more like tea partiers, and they are compounding the problem.
“You should be more concerned with urban schools which are failing its children not NC will is doing something to strengthen education,”
Huh? And we are concerned with urban schools.
“There is a ideological difference be Democrats and the Republican leadership. DEMs believe funding per student belongs to the school, while REPs believe the money should “follow the child”
The money does belong to the school. The school is in the community and belongs to the community. The community pays taxes to support the school, therefore, the money belongs to the school, not the student.
“REPs believe the money should “follow the child””
How can money follow the child when it is not the child’s money?
Those with no children pay school tax at the same rate as those with 5 children or 1 child.
The money belongs to the whole community. So should the schools that money pays for.
Yes, I agree, ““It is a tragic day in NC for our public schools, their teachers and students.” But, i cannot agree with placing all of the blame for the demise of Public Education in North Carolina on ONE political party which has been in power for TWO years of the past 140 years. I am a teacher of 32 years and have had my salary “frozen” at least 5 times and even had to “return” 1/2 of 1% on one year. NONE of these incidents occurred during a Republican Legislature! Neither political party values teachers and education in this state. Salaries at the public school and university level have steadily lost ground for the past three decades and are now among the lowest in the nation. This DID NOT happen within the past two years. That is because teachers are told to blindly support ONE party while holding the other in contempt……………even though the legislature has been in controlled by Democrats for the past 140 years prior to these past two years. Also, it’s time we look at the “inflated” pensions of so many educators (and other state employees) who are “socially promoted” for the last four years of their career in order to pull a MUCH higher retirement for the rest of their lives than they should have. Therefore, if one’s salary averaged $40,000. a year for 26 years and $70,000. for the last four years, their pension is based on the “70,000. These people are unfairly draining the retirement system and there are THOUSANDS of them. Lastly, if teachers would promote a teacher union, like SO MANY other states have, they wouldn’t have to suck up to one political party (which takes them for granted), then complain when the other party gets in and holds them in contempt.
Both parties have weakened them for sure.
But the pain right now is pretty clearly aligned with one set of thinking.