Editorial: Stop the excuses, it's time to fund educational excellence, not mediocrity

CBC Editorial: Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018; Editorial # 8263
The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company

It is a doomed approach by North Carolina’s legislative leaders – and the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce – diminished expectations growing out of the low wages, low business taxes, reckless regulation, lower state employee benefits, blocking Medicaid expansion and more.

How low can you go?

North Carolina average teacher pay continues to rank near the bottom nationally. Even more importantly, that "average pay" figure is very misleading.

Let’s take a look at just how far off the mark teacher pay is in North Carolina.

Adjusting for inflation, average teacher pay in North Carolina has DECREASED since 2000, according to a 2016 study by the National Center for Education Statistics. The average pay 18 years ago, in 2016 dollars, is $55,461. Average pay in 2016 was $47,985.

Local supplements have a big impact on the statewide “average” pay number. In some of North Carolina’s larger and more-wealthy districts, average supplements can be as much as $8,500 (in Wake County). In rural, low-wealth districts there are little or no supplements.

In the last school year, the statewide average supplement was $4,194. But the reality was, just 13 of the state’s districts – only 11 percent – offered supplements at or above that average.

In North Carolina, the state is primarily responsible for paying classroom teachers. In the last school year, nearly two thirds of the state’s teachers made LESS than the state-funded average salary. Average salary has NO relationship to what the average teacher gets paid.

Even trying to use cost-of-living falls short when compared with what other states pay teachers. Of 17 states that rank lower than North Carolina in cost of living, only three -- Idaho, New Mexico and Oklahoma – have an average teacher pay rank lower than the state’s cost of living rank.

The most appropriate comparison is how does the pay of teachers – who must meet specific education requirements and other certifications – compare with other college-educated professionals? An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute revealed that North Carolina teachers’ wages are 65 percent of what other college graduates make in the state. Nationally, the wage-ratio difference is 77 percent.

North Carolina’s wage competitiveness ranks 49th! Only Arizona offered less competitive teacher pay.

The dialogue about teacher pay must turn to what does it take to recruit and retain the best and brightest to teach and make our public schools among the best in the nation?

It is time to end the justifications for mediocrity and develop a plan of action for public school excellence.

Nine months and counting!