RALEIGH (September 1, 2022) – More than 1.3 million students started the public school year in North Carolina this week.
Yet more than 4,400 teachers who should have been at the front of those children’s classes weren’t there, because school officials couldn’t fill the vacancies. And 3,600 more teachers across the state still aren’t fully licensed.1
That’s a disgrace. And it’s part of a pattern we see where North Carolina underfunds public education at every level. Our children – you know, the ones who can’t vote yet, but whom we expect to fill those high-tech jobs of the future? – deserve much better.
As a state, we could see this coming. Yet we didn’t do enough to produce teachers to meet the demand. As early as 2015 – after average teacher pay in North Carolina fell to 47th in the nation in 2013-142 – officials warned of a 30% decline in enrollment in UNC System colleges of education.
“We have a crisis,” the Chair of the UNC Board of Governors declared at the time.3
The UNC System has now seen a 43% drop in undergraduate education majors since 2010.
And lateral-entry, or what are now called “residency license,” teachers – those who weren’t education majors but want to become licensed teachers – have surpassed UNC colleges of education as the leading source of North Carolina public school teachers.
Unfortunately, though, lateral-entry teachers are also among those most likely to leave teaching.4 And they are concentrated among some of the state’s most challenged school districts in northeastern North Carolina.5
“In North Carolina, we have a pipeline problem, where the universities are not producing enough teachers,” Dr. Marvin Connelly, Jr., superintendent of Cumberland County Schools, told a reporter last week. At the time, Cumberland was scrambling to hire 85 classroom teachers and fill 115 staff positions, including bus drivers, lunch workers, counselors and school psychologists.
“Also, we have got to improve the teacher pay,” Connelly said.
After two years of teaching remotely, confronting learning loss and other stresses of the pandemic, North Carolina schools have seen a wave of senior staff and teachers leaving.
“Absolutely,” Connelly said. “Our seasoned teachers have seen their pay remain stagnant for years. And some are saying, ‘It’s not getting any better – I’m out.’”6
Adjusted for inflation, average teacher salaries in North Carolina have actually declined since 2012.
The National Education Association ranked North Carolina 34th in average teacher pay for 2021-22 – more than $10,000 below the national average.7
And as the inflation rate hit 8.6% in June, our magnanimous state legislature granted teachers an average raise of 4.2% – less than half the rate of inflation, yet still more than other state employees.
If you understood percentages by middle school, you understand that’s a pay cut. In a year when the state had a $6.5 billion surplus.8
NEA ranked North Carolina 41st in per-pupil spending in 2020-21 and 39th in 2021-22 – in both instances, more than $3,300 less per child than the national average.9 That might help explain why NC schools have trouble finding bus drivers, cafeteria workers, guidance counselors and psychologists.
WHAT DON’T STATE LEADERS GET? Is it not enough to know that North Carolina lags Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee in both starting and top teacher pay?10
If you hope to catch up with Alabama,11 that’s usually not a real good sign.
But in truth, no one goes into teaching for the money. And other states aren’t the biggest competitors for North Carolina teachers.12
Better prospects in other professions when students choose a major as undergrads are what draw prospective teachers to other fields. And parents often steer their children away from teaching, as former UNC Charlotte Dean of Education Ellen McIntyre repeatedly warned state officials.13
One special teacher, though, can change the life of a child, as McIntyre says a teacher did for her:
There’s also the issue of respect – some officials repeatedly denigrate our state’s teachers, beating them down at the same time they parcel out paltry raises.14 Who could blame them if the workplace no longer seems comfortable?
THERE’S SOME REASON for hope, however.
The N.C. Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in the 28-year-old Leandro case over state funding for schools.
A Superior Court judge ruled in April that the state budget adopted last November fell $785 million short of full funding, but he stopped short of ordering state officials to allocate those funds.15
In a friend-of-the-court brief, business leaders from across the state have urged the court to order the funds to be distributed.
While enrollment at UNC System Colleges of Education has declined over the past decade, when public and private programs are combined with lateral-entry teachers seeking licensure only, there has been an increase in the number of prospective teachers in the pipeline in recent years.16
And the State Board of Education plans to consider a new pay plan this fall that officials say would raise teacher pay. Teachers have resisted the draft plan’s emphasis on performance measures, saying it could be punitive for teachers with students who don’t perform well on standardized tests.17
But as former Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Superintendent Don Martin pointed out recently for Higher Ed Works, there is a middle ground to be found on teacher pay.18
Surely compromise is possible – and given the conditions in which teachers and students began the school year, it can’t come soon enough.
1 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article264526776.html.
2 https://www.bestnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Facts-Figures-July-2022.pdf, p. 28.
3 https://hew.aveltsagency.com/2015/01/unc-board-on-teacher-supply-we-have-a-crisis/.
4 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article264526776.html; https://www.bestnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Facts-Figures-July-2022.pdf, p. 25.
5 https://www.bestnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Facts-Figures-July-2022.pdf, p. 24.
6 https://www.wral.com/first-day-of-school-new-year-new-classrooms-new-dress-codes-and-bus-schedules/20436221/.
7 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article260971512.html.
8 https://hew.aveltsagency.com/2022/07/a-pay-cut/.
9 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article260971512.html; https://www.nea.org/sites/default/files/2022-06/2022%20Rankings%20and%20Estimates%20Report.pdf, p. 50.
10 https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2022/08/20/boyle-column-nc-trails-alabama-sc-tennessee-teacher-pay/7841283001/.
11 https://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2022/07/07/alabama-is-schooling-north-carolina-on-teacher-pay/#sthash.fiq2rbOC.JdAVHt6H.dpbs/.
12 https://www.bestnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Facts-Figures-July-2022.pdf, p. 26.
13 https://hew.aveltsagency.com/2017/11/uncc-teacher-pipeline/.
14 https://www.cbs17.com/news/north-carolina-news/nc-lt-gov-robinson-releases-report-saying-some-teachers-abuse-position-to-indoctrinate-kids/.
15 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article260802897.html; https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article264995024.html.
16 https://www.bestnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Facts-Figures-July-2022.pdf, p. 19.
17 https://www.wral.com/ncae-clashes-with-proposed-overhaul-of-teacher-licensure-calls-for-necessary-support-and-resources/20410167/.
18 https://hew.aveltsagency.com/2022/08/don-martin-a-middle-ground-on-teacher-pay-plan/.
Mary E. Moretz says
I am a retired high school teacher. I was so very proud to be a teacher, but gone are the days when teachers, although underpaid, were respected members of society. Now public education is used as a political football used to garner votes and the educators have become the collateral damage.
No one wants to invest their time and money and heart into a college education so they can work two jobs, not have a real vacation, never own a home of their own, and still be blamed for society’s ills.
I met two young bright women this past weekend who are leaving public education. They know that all the testing in our schools is really testing them. When students come into classes who don’t do their homework, refuse to do the classwork, and whose parents do not insist that they do their school work but let them have unlimited screen-time, the teachers will fail the EOG’s and EOC’s as well as the students.
It is time for public education to go through a complete overhaul. Perhaps we should look at the successful European models as a starting point.
I
Matt Huntanar says
In addition to better pay, our teachers need better working conditions and smaller classroom sizes. I personally know four teachers that left the field after less than two years. These young teachers stated that they did not feel valued or respected by their administration, other teachers, parents, and students. They reported working in horrible spaces with limited access to bathrooms and water fountains. They stated that if they wanted things in their classrooms to make the space feel special it would be at their own expense. They also stated that the only way to meet the expectations of their administrators was to work additional hours outside of the regular day.
Many of our State Legislatures are not invested in improving the educational experience in our public schools because their children, grandchildren, nephews, and nieces attend private schools. Improving our public schools should start with changing the names and faces of those that serve in the NC State Legislature.
John Morrison says
Look at the state pay scale. Teaching is a GIG not a CAREER.