Governor Pat McCrory and the Legislature in North Carolina are doing their best to get rid of the state’s’s star teachers, and they are succeeding.
The state is losing large numbers of experienced teachers, because of low salaries. Teachers’ salaries have been flat for six years and are now 46th in the nation.
This National Board Certified Teacher quit, and she wrote a letter to the governor to explain why.
A 13-year veteran, Melissa Taylor wrote:
“To Whom It May Concern,
It is with great sadness that I submit my written notification of resignation from my teaching position with Wake County Public School Systems effective 3/14/14. I have found it more and more difficult to pay my bills every month and continue to fall further and further into debt, not to mention the feeling of absolute disrespect that I feel every time a new “expectation” is mandated for our classrooms while all of our resources are being taken away. I had no choice but to search for a job that will allow me to provide for my family and to pay back the thousands of dollars in college loans that I took to be a teacher. I find the condition of our education system in NC to be heartbreaking. It seems that our leaders and law makers have completely forgotten what is the most important thing here, the kids! We are failing our students, our teachers and our future. Please accept this letter as my official resignation from Wake County Public Schools.
Sincerely,
Melissa Taylor, M.Ed, NBCT”
Do you think Governor McCrory cares? Or will he gladly full her job with a TFA who will leave before vesting for a pension?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Do you think Governor McCrory cares? Or will he gladly full her job with a TFA who will leave before vesting for a pension?”
I suspect you’ve already identified the heart of the issue and that the answers are all too clear.
How sad indeed!
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Click to access ed_35daymailing-dc.pdf
This primer from ALEC has most of the text of the North Carolina “Excellence In Public Education Act” pre-drafted for lawmakers.
The same is true in Ohio. Lawmakers (or more likely staff) just change the caption on the law. For example, North Carolina’s law for third grader reading seems to be titled “Read to Achieve” and Ohio’s is titled “The Third Grade Reading Guarantee” but it’s the same language.
The “A-F” grading systems they’re using all over the country are also essentially pre-drafted boilerplate.
This teacher put more time, more original thought and more effort into writing her resignation letter than the lawmakers put in drafting North Carolina’s ed reform laws.
It might be more productive if lawmakers worried more about doing their own jobs rather than regulating teachers. The first thing they could do would be to set some ethical and quality benchmarks regarding copying and pasting the entire agenda of a lobbying group and codifying that into state law.
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What the governor seems to fail to take into account is that teachers working in NC spend money in NC and without teachers making a decent salary, their families and all their spending power will go somewhere else. These teachers spouses will also find jobs elsewhere, so what business would want to relocate to NC without the hope of finding highly educated employees? None because highly educated people want highly educated teachers…oh, lets say maybe a NBCT teacher! The domino effect is in full force in that state (oh yeah and as a soon to retire teacher, one who was thinking about NC…I”m also now taking my retirement dollars elsewhere)!
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cary444: spurious claims to the contrary, the deleterious effects you mention are a feature—not a bug—of so-called “education reform.”
Much said in few words. Thank you for your comments.
😎
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Melissa Taylor was my daughter’s teacher. This hit us, as a family, very hard. Melissa was an amazing teacher who loved the profession. Her decision to leave wasn’t just about the money. She was not able to teach effectively with the shackles of CC binding her. I have good news though. Melissa’s replacement started last week and she is not a TFA short timer. She is a younger teacher and not NBCT but she has international experience and appears to know what she is doing. Our family is hoping for the best as we move forward but this situation is going to be less and less rare if things don’t change soon.
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I wonder if that new teacher has any idea what happened to her predecessor. I hope she has been warned not to seek any further education at her expense and to plan her class around the resources the district supplies, so she doesn’t fine herself in debt as well. CCSS demands will suck the life out of her soon enough without committing her own resources.
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Read how the process works in LA, and the story of Kilroy, the teacher who is no longer here!
Read about the process in NYC, at Betsy Combier’s site and the story of Francesco Portelos.
http://rubberroom3020-a.blogspot.com/2013/08/dear-arbitrator-wittenberg-doe-evidence.html
His story shows the lengths that administration goes to when a teacher stands his ground against allegations and will not run into retirement as I did. Led away to jail in handcuffs , and of course released, he has been fighting slander for years.
http://protectportelos.org/does-workplace-bullying-continues-my-33-hrs-behind-bars/
THIS COUNTRY HAS NO IDEA THAT THE SCHOOLS FAILED BECAUSE OF AN ORGANIZED PLAN, A REAL CONSPIRACY TO REMOVE THE TOM PROFESSIONALS FROM THE SCHOOLS, SO ANY COCKAMAMIE ‘REFORM’ COULD BE SOLD TO AN IGNORANT PUBLIC.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
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Yeah Diane – blame McCrory because he is conservative and the current governor even though the teacher herself is not blaming him. McCrory has been in office for a little over a year so how is it all his fault? The 20 years prior we had democrats for governor. That is where the blame should lie with the problems with our education in NC. They spent all those years worrying about busing and racial equality and bringing down good schools so they didn’t make the bad schools look so bad instead of helping the kids and doing right by the teachers. There are good, very involved parents and teachers out there who are trying to do right by the kids. Perhaps you Diane should do the same instead of playing the same politics that got us in this position in the first place. Stop the blame game and let’s find a solution.
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RAA13, the solution is obvious: Vote to throw out your teacher-hating Legislature and the Governor with them.
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I’m confused. Is RAA13 saying that busing and racial equality did not need to be brought to the forefront? Were the students who were bussed in responsible for bringing down the “good schools”? Sadly, it’s opinions like that that have gotten us where we are today…#46.
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Dr. Ravitch made no reference to party affiliation (McCrory’s nor the legislature’s) in the introduction to this post. She served under George H.W. Bush but is critical of many Dems such as Obama and Cuomo.
Hyperpartisanship is killing this country; most people are still worried about the image and perception of their party. The reality is both parties are corrupt and controlled by corporate interests. In NC, this has occured under Perdue’s watch and continues under McCrory.
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Mike you are so right! The extreme polarization of both parties have everyone “busy” in-fighting while the corporations and their henchmen are oozing in through the cracks. United we stand. Divided we WILL be conquered. And we will only have ourselves to blame.
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I think what RAA13 is maybe saying is that much of what is plaguing NC schools right now (aside from the salaries), is what was brought to us by Race to the Top. And you certainly cannot blame McCrory or anyone in our General Assembly for that.
That said, there is not a lot of talk about what to do, other than to impose more austerity on teachers and schools.
RAA13, you are right that somewhere in the middle, lies the balanced answer.
We should ask ourselves questions like: how could integration have been handled better? We should ask the minority communities what they think, rather than thinking for them (and we should be certain not to put words in their mouths for them).
And, we must never consider democracy to be a burden, or an inconvenience for the wealthy.
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“Do you think Governor McCrory cares? ”
Can one improve a tapeworm?
The product of an earnest plea to “Conscience” is proportional to the existence of
a conscience. Does an analysis of actions indicate the existence of a conscience,
or an ethical concern?
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Ah that reminds me of a good joke.
And an apt one, perhaps.
So a guy has a tape worm and goes to the doctor. (and pardon the crassness, but it is about a tape worm). . .the doctor uses a sugar cookie as a suppository. The patient is baffled, but the doctor just tells him to come back in a week.
The patient continues to visit the doctor each week for six weeks and the doctor continues to use the sugar cookie suppository treatment.
On the seventh visit, the doctor comes into the room with a baseball bat. This time the doctor uses a placebo suppository. . .again baffling the patient. With confidence, the doctor takes the baseball bat in strike pose. . .
all of a sudden the tape worm pokes its head out and yells, “where’s my sugar cookie?”
and bam goes the bat.
And that was the end of the tape worm.
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Wash your mouth out with soap, eh Joanna-ha ha!!
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Great delivery!
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Not a vulgar word to be found, Duane. 🙂 I second concerned mom, Joanna.
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My brother in law is an NBCT teacher who is teaching in Wake County. I wonder how much longer he’s going to be willing to put up with the situation over there.
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I student taught in Wake County back in 1998. The last of the pre-NCLB days.
What have we done here in NC? What have we done? Were we deceived by those we elected when they ran? Or were we just not paying attention. I wish I knew.
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I can almost guarantee you that McCrory doesn’t care. I am a Nationally Board Certified Teacher with 19 years in the classroom. I also have my Master’s. I am doing the countdown until retirement and I am only 40!! What’s ridiculous is that the opinions of teachers are not valued. The real shame of it all, however, is that McCrory wasn’t the first governor who felt this way and shamefully, he probably won’t be the last.
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“What’s ridiculous is that the opinions of teachers are not valued.”
And they shouldn’t be!
But reasoned logical responses from veteran teachers as yourself should be!
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