DAVID RICE: North Carolinians voice strong support to raise teacher pay

A poll released last week revealed overwhelming support among Democratic, Republican and unaffiliated North Carolinians for raising public school teacher pay to the national average.

So if it’s a political slam dunk, why don’t legislators do it?

Further, 73 percent said they would be willing to pay more in taxes to raise average teacher pay in the state to the national average within five years. That included 72 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of Republicans and 76 percent of unaffiliated residents. The poll of 439 North Carolina adults was conducted Feb. 5-11 and had a margin of error of +\- 4.7 percent.

Higher education leaders in North Carolina care about pay for K-12 teachers because better teachers prepare better college students, and UNC colleges of education are the single largest source of teachers in North Carolina, providing 44% of the state’s beginning teachers.

One feeds the other.

Yet the state’s colleges of education saw a 30% decline in enrollment from 2010-2015. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

Legislators have placed a heavier emphasis on raising starting teacher pay to $35,000, and Moore said he hears complaints about new teachers getting larger raises than more experienced teachers.

“That’s a fair question,” he said. “That’s something that we are continuing to invest in.”

“We are where we are, but we’re working to get those up, and we are improving,” Moore said at the Charlotte event. “It’s like anything else – it’s not a problem that happened overnight, and you’re not going to fix it overnight. It takes a long-term approach, and that’s what we’re doing.”

One obvious competitor for the dollars needed to pay teachers better are the tax cuts Republican legislators have enacted since they took control of the legislature in 2011.

At a recent forum with civic, business and education leaders in Winston-Salem, Moore defended the tax cuts, noting that Forbes recently ranked North Carolina the number-one state in the country to do business.

But he also said he didn’t see a need to continue cutting taxes this year.

“We’ve had great reform,” he said. “We have other tax cuts that are going to trigger and go in this year. I don’t see the need to adopt another round of tax reform this year…. We need to let the dust settle.”

One business leader at the Winston-Salem event challenged state leaders to follow through with teacher pay the way they have with pledges to cut taxes and put the state’s fiscal house in order.

“Give us a road map, and this state would be so enthusiastic if they were told, ‘In the next four years, we’re going from 35th to 20th,’” businessman John Burress told Moore. “You did it with taxes – why can’t you do it with education?”

“It’s a challenge that every one of us should heed,” Moore replied. “Of the members that I talk to in my chamber … every single one of them recognizes that if we are going to improve as a state, if we are going to improve our economy, if we’re going to improve our way of life, if we’re going to improve our health care, that education is critical. That’s where it starts.”

Though there are systemic problems with broken families, drugs and crime, Moore said, “We are working to try to make sure that every child in this state has a great education.”

Legislators return to Raleigh May 16 for their even-year “short” session to make adjustments to the state budget.

That’s when they’ll have another chance to show just how committed they are to raising teacher pay in North Carolina.