EDITORIAL: N.C. education 'transparency' dashboard misleads, is fatally flawed

Mark Johnson says he wants North Carolinians – particularly the taxpayers who are parents of public school children – to have access to more information about how their money is used and what is being done to help learning.

Johnson, the state superintendent of public instruction, appears to want us to understand how much our classroom teachers are being paid and how that compares with household incomes and wages other North Carolinians earn in their jobs. He wants to convince us he and other leaders are doing a good job of providing for public education.

A quick look gives the impression that things are pretty cushy for our public school teachers. The resources available to them are more than generous.

The truth is, looks are deceiving.

It must be fixed. Until that is done, the misleading and distorted information should be taken off line.

For starters, when it comes to teacher pay the comparisons are misleading, and incomplete.

Johnson uses statewide “average” public school teacher pay (a troublesome number to begin with and we’ll get to that) and then compares it to “median” household income and wages. The figures are then repeated in similarly misleading fashion for every county in the state.

So, Johnson wants us to compare 2018-2019 “average” teacher pay of $53,975 with the “median” 2017 household income of $50,320. But, as North Carolina 6th graders are taught, that’s all wrong. The proper comparison would be either between the “average” teacher pay and “average” household income or “median” teacher pay and “median” household income.

And that deception doesn’t even begin to address the shift-shaping in the calculations of the state’s “average” teacher pay.

The $53,975 figure misses the mark. It is cobbled together with money most teachers DO NOT RECEIVE, to fit into a national association’s effort to look at how teachers are paid nationwide.

Nearly two-thirds of the state’s public school teachers make LESS than the average. Without the local supplement, state-funded average pay is $49,371. And another reality, only 12 of the state’s 115 school districts offered pay supplements last year that were AT OR MORE than the average supplement. (SEE CHART BELOW).

Educators didn’t flood Raleigh last week because they were having a hard time spending the money General Assembly appropriated for public education.

They understand addition and subtraction. They know the differences between “average” and “median.” They can discern the truth (“I forgot to do my assignment”) from fiction (“The dog ate my homework.”)

They also have the ability to distinguish between propaganda and transparency. Taxpayer funds need to be spent to present information enlightens and empowers citizens – not distorts and misleads to further entrench public officials.

Mark Johnson, take down your dashboard.