Editorial: Speaker Moore's boasting about education doesn't add up
Friday, Nov. 17, 2017 -- House Speaker Tim Moore and his ideological soulmates in the General Assembly are more intent on cutting taxes for big corporations and the wealthy than providing the needed funding for properly paid teachers and quality public schools. When it comes to doing more for education in North Carolina, Moore's boasting is no more than school-yard trash talk.
Posted — UpdatedOf greater concern is the failure of Moore and his fellow leaders in the legislature to admit that in the last six years, North Carolina public education has in fact lost ground.
Moore’s rhetoric is aspirational. Facts are not.
Let’s start with four contentions in the second sentence of his column:
- “Four consecutive teacher pay raises.” FACT: Teacher pay has increased for those with the least experience while it has stagnated or been cut for those with more experience. Additionally, pay cuts for longevity and advanced degrees coupled with increased costs of benefits drive out the best and most experienced in our classrooms. North Carolina average teacher pay remains $9,000 behind the national average.
- “Improved approach to state education funding.” FACT: Education funding in North Carolina is in an unresolved crisis of the legislature’s making. An unfunded demand to cut class size continues to leave local school systems in budget-planning chaos that threatens art, music, language arts and physical-ed instruction in our schools.
- “Successful ‘Read to Achieve’ literacy program.” FACT: Surveys of North Carolina teachers indicate barely a quarter say the program has had a positive impact and 40 percent say it’s been negative.
- “Expanded school choice for low-income families.” FACT: The lack of demonstrable educational achievement, accountability and transparency in the “opportunity scholarship” private school voucher program is an irresistible invitation to fraud, waste, abuse and corruption. There are already signals of that a plenty. Look at what’s happening at the Fayetteville private school that is the single-greatest recipient of voucher funds. Its basketball coach pleaded guilty to embezzling hundreds of thousands of state tax withholding dollars.
Now, that’s just Speaker Moore’s second sentence.
Moore shouldn’t claim advances in education when, in too many cases, the reality is that it’s been two steps backward followed by a single step forward. That means we’re still behind.
That’s the case with the state’s very successful Teaching Fellows program. After abolishing the program on a partisan whim in 2011, the program’s received a half-hearted revival this year. Funding will allow for up to 160 fellows a year, compared to the 500 per year in the original program.
North Carolina schools today have more students than ever, but fewer assistant principals, nurses, social workers and guidance counselors. Money for teacher assistants has been sliced $62 million. There are 3,150 fewer teachers in our schools today than there would be if formulas in place during the 2011-12 school year were still followed.
The reality is that Moore and his ideological soulmates in the General Assembly are more intent on cutting taxes for big corporations and the wealthy than providing the needed funding for properly paid teachers and quality public schools.
When it comes to doing more for education in North Carolina, Moore’s boasting is no more than school-yard trash talk. All platitudes, with little to back it up.
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