The North Carolina state constitution clearly says that public funding is for public schools, but the Governor and General Assembly passed voucher legislation so parents can use public funds to send their children to schools run by religious groups.
Now a high-powered law firm backed by the Koch brothers has entered the lawsuit to defend vouchers.
They want more children to learn Biblical science and history and to be well prepare for the jobs of the 17th century.
The North Carolina legislature created a voucher plan, which they call “opportunity scholarships.” Voucher proponents never have the courage to call a voucher what it is; they always use the euphemism “opportunity scholarship” to try to fool the public.
A number of North Carolina organizations challenged the law and the funding, and the judge ruled that the case against the law had merit and could proceed.
“The program, which was adopted as part of the budget bill signed into law by the governor in July, allows income-eligible families to apply for up to $4200 in tuition funds for use at private schools.
“A group of 25 educators and state taxpayers fired the opening salvo in December when they filed suit, contending that the use of taxpayer money for private schools violated provisions of the state constitution requiring that public dollars be used exclusively for a system of free public schools. Four individuals and the North Carolina School Boards Association filed a second suit days later making similar allegations. Since then more than 70 county boards of education have signed on to that lawsuit.
“Today, attorneys for the state as well as for the nonprofit Institute for Justice — a Washington, D.C. – based school choice organization which Hobgood allowed to join the lawsuits today on behalf of applicants to the program – tried to convince the court that the complaints lacked merit and should be dismissed.
“Attorney Lauren Clemmons, arguing for the state, said that the General Assembly met its obligation to spend public funds for public purposes in enacting the program because the public purpose was “education” in the broadest sense of the word, not just public education.”
The North Carolina state constitution clearly, unequivocally says that public funds are to be used exclusively for public schools. Vouchers are used to send children to private schools. That means the legislature’s lawyers have to do some fancy footwork to claim legitimacy for vouchers.
Funny how conservatives think of themselves as “strict constructionists” of the Constitution. Except for vouchers.
On my recent visit to North Carolina, I met any wonderful people who are working hard to change the state for the better.
I saw Former Governor Hunt, who is well respected in the state. I visited the East Durham Children’s Initiative, a very ambitious effort to meet the needs of children and families in the poorest section of town.
But the most shocking moment of my visit came at the leadership dinner for about 300 state leaders. A group of young women sang a Capella to great applause. Then the chancellor of the North Carolina State University got up to praise them and added, with what sounded like pride, we don’t have a music major at NC state. We have math majors, science majors, no music major.
I was stunned. Why no music major? How embarrassing! Just from an economic standpoint (which I hate to mention), the music industry is huge and a major export. Just trying to put it into the economic terms the chancellor might understand.
If you live in NC, please let him know.
The school board in Guilford County, North Carolina, voted unanimously tonight to defy state legislation denying “tenure” (career status) to experienced teachers.
According to the latest news reports:
“GREENSBORO — The Guilford County School Board unanimously supported a resolution challenging the state’s new tenure law and asking for relief from laws requiring them to offer contracts to certain teachers in exchange for their tenure.
Teachers in the audience stood and clapped as the board’s vote appeared on a TV screen. Then board members and district staff stood and clapped for teachers.
Board members said the law is unconstitutional, its wording unclear. They also said the legislation “represents yet another thinly veiled attack on public education and educators.
Updated 7:11 p.m.
GREENSBORO — Senate leader Phil Berger said he is “deeply troubled” by reports that the Guilford County Board of Education will vote tonight not to follow provisions of the state teacher tenure law.
In a letter sent to Superintendent Maurice “Mo” Green, Berger said that by ignoring the law, board members are failing to “recognize and reward excellent teachers.”
Board members are expected to vote to not choose certain teachers to award new contracts, as required by law.
About six of the 11 board members already have indicated they support that vote.
Tonight, teachers wearing red for public education, packed the board room and central office. About an hour before the meeting started, teachers — some from out of state — chanted and held signs protesting recent legislation affecting education.
Several teachers spoke during the public comment period of the meeting, thanking board members for their expected voted.
“Right now educators are facing a death of a thousand cuts,” said teacher Todd Warren, who has spoken out about raising pay for all teachers.
Amy Harrison, a special education teacher at Reedy Fork Elementary, thanked the board and told them every teacher at her school has signed a petition pledging to decline the new contracts.
This just in, following my speech at the Emerging Issues Forum in North Carolina, whose extremist Governor Pat McCrory and General Assembly have passed laws diminishing the status of teachers and promoting vouchers and charters.
“Your speech to the IEI Forum was extraordinary and really sparked immense discussion on the floor of the Forum and later this afternoon. It cogently summarized the dramatic and destructive effect of the Republican policies of this last session, which has led us to 49 th in the nation in teacher pay, 46th in state spending on education, the abrogation of career status for teachers while offering only 25% of teachers a long term contract no matter how many on merit deserve them, elimination of mentor pay and all professional development funds, termination of our nationally recognized Teaching Fellows Program, massive cuts to teacher assistant positions, student support services, administrative capacity, textbooks and supplies; and the creation of a new voucher system and all but unregulated charters, unmoored from their original purpose and accountable supervision, soon to litter every corner of the state. Five years ago our commitment to public education was the envy of most of the nation; today, we are the example of all that is wrong with the term “reform” of public education by those who, in reality, too often seek to abandon it, and a betrayal of our children and their educators in the process. Thank you for your inspiring words and being a part of moving our state’s citizens to reconsider the ideological overreach that has imperiled public education in North Carolina.”
Representative Rick Glazier.
I participated in the major North Carolina Emerging Issues forum, where Governor Pat McCrory promised a pay increase to teachers in their first five years of teaching, but nothing for experienced teachers. Some veteran teachers will earn the same as teachers in thir fifth year. This went over like a dead balloon. Some observers speculated that it was a bonus for Teach for Merica, which won a $5-6 million contract fom the far-right McGrory administration at the same time that the nationally recognized North Carolina Teaching Fellows program was eliminated.
As salaries go up for new teachers, they stagnate for experienced teachers, who have not had a raise since 2008.
Before I spoke, I was preceded by a Teacher Town Hall, a panel of teachers who quit, mostly because they were disgusted by low pay, which seemed like disrespect. One teacher, who moved to Maryland, said she was earning $20,000 more.
NC has a major brain drain. Senior teachers are leaving because of low pay and lack of autonomy.
Apparently, that is what the Governor and legislature want. New teachers, low wages, high turnover. And that is called “reform.”
Helen F. Ladd of Duke University and Edward B. Fiske, former education editor of the Néw York Times, lambasted the Governor and Legislature of North Carolina for their calculated program to destroy public education in the state.
Only two years ago, Ladd and Fiske drafted a “vision statement” for the state board of education, describing how public education could better serve the children and the state.
But in the last year, Governor McCrory and the General Assembly have attacked the foundations of public education, underfunded the schools, and attacked the teaching profession.
They write:
“If one were to devise a strategy for destroying public education in North Carolina, it might look like this: Repeat over and over again that schools are failing and that the system needs to be replaced. Then make this a self-fulfilling prophecy by starving schools of funds, undermining teachers and badmouthing their profession, balkanizing the system to make coherent planning impossible, putting public funds in the hands of unaccountable private interests and abandoning any pretense that the goal is to prepare every child in our state to succeed in life.””
“We do not know what motives have driven McCrory and other Republican leaders to enact their education agenda. We do know that their actions look a lot like a systematic effort to destroy a public education system that took more than a century to build and that, once destroyed, could take decades to restore.”
North Carolina Governor McCrory tried to defuse criticism of his hostile policies toward teachers by offering a pay raise to teachers in their first five years instead of responding to a call by former Governor Jim Hunt to lift salaries to the national average. NC teachers are now 46th in the nation in salary.
Under McCrory’s proposal, 70% of teachers get no raise. Salaries for teachers have been flat since 2008. It takes 15 years for a teacher in NC to earn $40,000 a year.
This blast just was released about the McCrory plan:
Dear xxxxxxx,
Today, NC Speaker Thom Tillis, along with Governor Pat McCrory and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, unveiled a plan that fails to provide a pay raise to 70% of North Carolina’s hardworking teachers. If you, like us, believe ALL North Carolina teachers deserve a pay raise please sign our petition today and forward to it to 5 friends.
Their plan is simply an election year gimmick. Republicans only want to shield themselves from public backlash over the damage they’ve done to public education. Unfortunately for the Republicans, they have already made it clear during the 2013 Legislative Session that public education was simply not a priority for them. They laid off 3,800 teacher’s assistants, cut $500 million from public education, denied all teachers a pay raise and raised tuition at community colleges – all while allocating tens of millions of dollars for private school vouchers.
This Republican plan only offers a pay raise to a select few teachers at a time when ALL teachers in North Carolina deserve a raise. The plan DOES NOT raise teacher pay to the national average, DOES NOT make teacher pay in NC competitive with other states – like Virginia – that are luring teachers away and DOES NOT offer a plan that will prepare our students for the modern workforce.
Perhaps most appalling is the fact that the money to give ALL North Carolina teachers a pay raise exists in the state budget but the GOP would rather use that money to give tax breaks to out-of-state corporations and millionaires.
Please stand with House Democrats today by signing this petition that demands the Governor and the General Assembly Republicans treat our teachers with respect and helps them to get what we as North Carolinians know they deserve.
We thank you for your continued support as we fight for a greater future for all North Carolinians.
Sincerely,
Rep. Larry D. Hall
Democratic Leader
P.S. This petition seeks to protect the North Carolina public education system by asking for a pay raise for ALL North Carolina public school teachers – not just a select few – to the national average. PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TODAY AND FORWARD TO 5 FRIENDS.
Paid for by the NCDP- House Caucus
220 Hillsborough Street
Raleigh, NC 27603
Gene Nichol, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, patiently explains that none of the “reforms” endorsed by the legislature, like charters and vouchers, will make a difference. The major obstacle causing low educational performance is poverty, not bad teachers or bad schools
He writes:
“The troubling correlation between education and poverty places North Carolina reform efforts in odd posture. For the powers-that-be on Jones Street and in the governor’s office, the obsession to “reform” our education system – through vouchers, charters, endless tests, performance measures and the like – is matched only by an unequaled, defining pledge to ignore and, in operation, actually increase child poverty.
“We’ll use every school reform tool in the arsenal except the one the entire world knows matters most: lifting kids from debilitating hardship. As if a child can learn effectively when she is hungry, sick, ill-clad, unsupported, unchallenged and unprepared.”
He adds:
“The marriage of poverty and educational underperformance should give pause to the many Tar Heels who claim, I can attest, that the only anti-poverty program they support is education. It’s a consoling thought, perhaps.
“But it is literally, quite literally, impossible to secure equal educational opportunity while 26 percent of our children – 41 percent of our children of color – live in torturous poverty.”
In NorthCarolina, the top 25% of teachers are eligible to give up due process rights in return for an extra $500 a year. However, there is a catch, this reader says:
“It is $500 a year for 4 years and then back to where you were in 2013-14. You don’t stay at the plus $2,000 in year 5. Also since only the first year is funded local funds will have to be found for years 2, 3 and 4. It’s just the cheese in the trap.”
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