CLICK HERE to view the full webinar on Fair Pay for NC K-12 Teachers

RALEIGH (June 8, 2023) – When she won a North Carolina Teaching Fellows scholarship to become a teacher in 1998, Rachel Frye felt valued by the state of North Carolina.

But after 21 years in teaching, Frye says in webinar on fair pay for teachers hosted by Higher Ed Works, her pay has not kept up with her responsibilities.

And North Carolina is “hemorrhaging” teachers to South Carolina and Virginia.

“If we want a new generation of educators to enter the field and become teacher leaders, we must pay them,” says Frye, now the 2023 Southwest NC Teacher of the Year at East Lincoln High School.

“The bottom line for me is that educators who are paid well will feel valued and will stay in the classroom.”

The views stretch across political parties and roles in education.

Don Martin, former superintendent of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools and now Chair of the Forsyth County commissioners, says North Carolina tends to alternate with Alabama for rank in average teacher pay in the Southeast.¹ 

Virginia and Georgia are the region’s clear leaders, he says, averaging about $5,000 more than North Carolina in teacher salaries.

And when it comes to starting pay, “North Carolina’s beginning teacher salary is simply not competitive. We rank 7th out of 8 – just ahead of Mississippi,” Martin says.

And the state Senate’s proposed budget does nothing to improve that.

Mary Ann Wolf, President of the Public School Forum of North Carolina, notes that teachers’ jobs are quite complex – and there are almost twice as many teacher vacancies in the state as there were last year.

”It takes all of a person … to really get the job done,” Wolf says. 

“What we are not doing right now is we are not investing in our educators to be able to do what’s best for our students,” she says.

After nearly three decades of litigation over the Leandro case on public-school funding, Wolf adds that North Carolina has a constitutional obligation to provide its citizens with a high-quality education.

Wolf also outlines the division of responsibilities between the state and counties, noting that some counties pay as much as $9,000 a year in supplements to their teachers.

The state provided additional money for supplements in all but five counties last year, she says, but North Carolina still ranks 36th to 38th in average teacher pay, despite its thriving economy. 

“We are a state that is thriving in terms of economy. We are number one in business, and yet our effort in terms of education funding is so low,” Wolf says.

The Senate’s budget proposal, she says, would mean a teacher with 17 years of experience would get a raise of 4.5 percent – about $200 – over two years.² 

“If we don’t do this at the state level, locals can only do so much to make up for that,” Wolf says.

IN PARTICULAR, says Jerry Wilson, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Center for Racial Equity in Education (CREED), North Carolina must do more to attract teachers of color. 

When taught by a teacher of color, he says, students of color perform better in any number of measures.

“That impact is astronomical,” Wilson says.

In fact, educators of color improve the performance of all students.³

“So it’s hugely important that we have more educators of color,” he says.

Yet as a teacher in Chicago, Wilson says, he made about twice what he would make in North Carolina.

North Carolina has more four-year historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) than any state, Wilson says, and nine of the 10 institutions have educator preparation programs.

“That is a huge opportunity for the state,” he says.

IN DENVER, NC, Frye says many of her colleagues are simply tired and frustrated with the disrespect they see in state budgets.

“We constantly make miracles happen with very little. What could we not do with adequate resources?” she asks.

Wolf notes that people who go into education make 24.5% less, on average, than others with a similar level of education. She says she’s hopeful that business leaders and parents are becoming more aware of the discrepancies.

“People really care,” she says. “The reaction isn’t ‘Oh, I don’t care about that.’ 

“It’s the opposite.”

CLICK HERE to view the full webinar on Fair Pay for NC K-12 Teachers

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¹ https://ncnewsline.com/briefs/alabama-is-schooling-north-carolina-on-teacher-pay/. 
² https://www.wral.com/story/nc-senate-budget-has-lower-raises-bigger-tax-cuts-and-a-threat-for-large-hospitals/20861813/.
³ https://hew.aveltsagency.com/2017/11/uncc-teacher-pipeline/.