The Truth about education? (Raleigh: health insurance, home, high school)

[Ellen Pitts]

Someone posted this to Facebook and I have "heard" all the accusations about the NC educations system. What is actually the truth? Is there any way of knowing?

State education spending: the facts | Timothy Moffitt

[Native_Son]

Originally Posted by pegotty

Someone posted this to Facebook and I have "heard" all the accusations about the NC educations system. What is actually the truth? Is there any way of knowing?

State education spending: the facts | Timothy Moffitt

Timothy's write up appears to me full of half truths and self-comparisons. "Hey, look at this pile of crusty dog crap! Doesn't it look better than this smelly puddle of vomit?!? Those silly liberals, they are soooooo dramatic, omg!"

Furthermore, Timothy's "evidence and support" (linked references) don't really even back up his assertions.

I especially love this quote:
"In other states, education is funded primarily by local governments — with property taxes and bonds — and not with state dollars, as we do in North Carolina. The fact remains that our county and city governments could choose to spend more on educating our children, but they don’t.

Why is this important? It’s not really, except to say that when the media casts blame on the General Assembly for not spending enough on our children’s education, there are many other significant factors to consider. And of course, it’s easy for the media to point fingers, especially at Republicans."


oh gracious, those poor poor Republicans. For anyone keeping up with Raleigh's ANTI local government lawmaking habits, those two paragraphs are especially rich. Especially his own admission that his comparisons are BUNK. "Why s this important?" Timothy asks... "It's not really" he admits. He admits it's a irrelevant comparison! Because without context Timothy's entire write up is worthless. And he knows it. He's relying on his idiot redneck uninformed rah-rah voter base to eat it up anyway though... and they will. I can only imagine the Facebook "gotchas" over this tripe.


Timothy's damage control machine can't spool up fast enough to protect this GA. Plus I don't think ole Mr. Moffitt is smart enough to run it...

[KHSMom]

A lot of what he writes is really disingenuous. For example:

But why did you cut teacher pay?

Contrary to rumors spread by liberal advocacy groups, teacher pay has not been cut. Period.

Technically, this may be true, but teachers have not received a raise in many years. The net effect is that NC teachers, whose average pay used to fall somewhere in the middle when compared to other states, now ranks near the bottom. Good teachers will not come here, and good teachers who are already here will leave or leave the profession.

How have the teachers pay raises compared to other state employees?

North Carolina’s teachers have done markedly better than other state employees in terms of pay raises..... (see graph)

Sure, because NC teachers used to have some of the lowest pay in the nation. There was a concerted effort to bring teacher compensated into line with what teachers in other states were being paid. Other state employees did not start with such a low baseline.

How does this compare to what other people make?

When you divide a teacher’s base salary (not including benefits) of $45,947 by the total number of weeks actually spent working (44), you get an average weekly wage of $1,044. According to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average weekly wage across North Carolina is just $673.

Either this guy needs is being purposely misleading, or needs to go back to high school. This comparison is meaningless. Teachers must have bachelor's degrees, and many have master's degrees. Most North Carolinians have neither of these. A valid statistic would be to compare teachers' average weekly compensation with the average weekly of other college educated professionals. Actually, I'd really like to see THAT graph.

Why did you end the extra pay for teachers with master’s degrees?

The budget does phase-out new pay supplements for teachers who earn a master’s degree, unless that advanced degree is required for their position. (clip) It’s important to note that other state employees don’t get raises just for earning a master’s degree.

Here, I think it's unfair to compare teaching to "other state employees." I have a family member who works in human resources for the state. Over the course of his career, he has worked his way up, and gotten raises, though positions like "human resources analyst 1, analyst 2, analyst 3, supervisory analyst, etc. (these may not be the exact titles, but you get the gist).

Teachers don't have that kind of career progression...you're a teacher, or you aren't a teacher...unless they want to leave the classroom (and WHY would we want experienced teachers to leave the classroom??) The extra pay for advanced degrees or certifications is a way to reward teachers for staying in the classroom and continuing to learn and increase their skills. I don't think that's unreasonable.

These are just my first impressions reading the article. It's written very well and, unfortunately, will no doubt appeal to the masses.

[arbyunc]

Native Son and KHS are right on it. This article is a steaming pile of BS.

[LRoyal10900]

Originally Posted by KHSMom

A lot of what he writes is really disingenuous. For example:

But why did you cut teacher pay?

Contrary to rumors spread by liberal advocacy groups, teacher pay has not been cut. Period.

Technically, this may be true, but teachers have not received a raise in many years. The net effect is that NC teachers, whose average pay used to fall somewhere in the middle when compared to other states, now ranks near the bottom. Good teachers will not come here, and good teachers who are already here will leave or leave the profession.

It's not just that teachers have not received a raise, but teachers are based on a step-system, based on years of experience. Teacher pay has been frozen for the last 5 years. So, a teacher with 5 years experience is still being paid as a 1st year teacher. If had been teaching for 10 years at the time, you're still getting paid for 10 years of experience, although you've now been teaching for 15 years.

Not only have teachers & state employees had minimal raises (1%, etc.) over the last couple of years, the cost of health insurance, if you have to insure your family, has risen over 20% during the last 5 years. Many employees can't afford to insure their families if their spouse doesn't have coverage at his/her place of employment.

Also, state employees have twice now (this year included) been given 5 days of bonus leave. Teachers have no opportunity to take that leave. It (considered "annual leave" in the school system) can only be used on days when students are not there. BUT...the number of work days/leave days have been reduced in the last 2 years, and those days that are in the calendar are "required workdays," meaning there's usually staff development and other training that you're required to have. So, teachers don't even get those bonus days. And they surely don't give teachers the $ in the place of it.

[LLN]

The guy that wrote that needs an ass whippin.

I dispute a lot of his numbers. He left out the part about terming bonuses for maxing out on EOG scores, and then changing the rules to make it impossible for a decent school to make growth targets, again influencing teacher's take home pay. I hate politicians and all that don't hate them.

If we had a real, militant union (like weather underground) I would join, but I am not interested in the namby-pamby crowd we have now. They have done more harm than good by any metric.

Radiate all within the DC Beltway and the Raleigh Beltline and we might start making some progress.