JUSTIN PARMENTER: For teachers, May 16 about more than paychecks
Sunday, May 13, 2018 -- None of us got into education for the money. We teach because we love North Carolina's children, and we want to see them succeed. Unfortunately, our General Assembly's misplaced priorities not only create difficult working conditions for our teachers, they create unacceptable learning conditions for students that have lasting impacts on student behavior and achievement.
Posted — UpdatedClasses with so many children that some have to sit on the floor. Other classes taking place in closets. Blind students who can’t get books in Braille. History textbooks with George Bush as president. Kindergarten classes with 30 students and no assistant. Teachers forced to stop class to attend to special medical needs because there’s no nurse on duty.
Welcome to public school in North Carolina.
As the number of teachers planning to come to Raleigh for the May 16 “Rally for Respect” passes 10,000, efforts by some to discredit the uprising by characterizing teachers as money grubbers have intensified.
However, the fact is, it’s not really about the paychecks.
But none of us got into education for the money. We teach because we love North Carolina’s children, and we want to see them succeed. Unfortunately, our General Assembly's misplaced priorities not only create difficult working conditions for our teachers, they create unacceptable learning conditions for students that have lasting impacts on student behavior and achievement.
These just some of the non-paycheck-related reasons teachers are coming to Raleigh on May 16:
Since 2008-09, the General Assembly has cut allotments for textbooks by 38 percent, technology by 45 percent, and school supplies by 54 percent (numbers are per student and adjusted for inflation). Teachers are stuck teaching classes without textbooks, purchasing their own supplies, and begging parents and community members to make up the difference for what state lawmakers don’t provide.
Our students are the future of North Carolina. They deserve textbooks and novels. They deserve to be socially and emotionally healthy. They deserve class sizes that will enable their success.
To provide those conditions, our General Assembly must make education priority Number One in our state. On May 16, thousands of teachers from all over North Carolina will be descending upon Raleigh to demand that state lawmakers do just that.
We won’t be abandoning our students that day. We’ll be standing up for them.
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