It’s comical when Phil Berger and Tim Moore openly discuss their intentional misinterpretations of the North Carolina Association of Educators.

Two of the most powerful lawmakers in a state that used illegal racial gerrymandering to elect state legislators that also is the only state to outlaw collective bargaining rights, have right-to-work laws, have the lowest corporate tax rates, and still not have a budget for this year are showing us how much they are scared of teachers organizing on behalf of students and schools.

From yesterday’s News & Observer:

Lie #1 – 5% of NC teachers pay dues to NCAE.

Not true at all. What Moore’s spokeperson was referring to was a report from the State Auditor’s office (Beth Wood) about membership in organizations that allow for automatic deductions for membership dues.

It has this data table:

Only one group on that list has a membership that fully pays through payroll deductions. In fact, at least two of the groups have memberships that are ten times the amount of people who use payroll deduction. Any statistician would know better than to misrepresent the numbers in a statement (unless he did it for political purposes).

There are two other teacher advocacy groups on that list whose memberships are mostly represented by people who do not use payroll deduction. PENC has 4.59 times the total number of members as their payroll deduction members. The NCCTA has 16.39 times the total number of members.

If NCAE followed those trends (and it does), it could might have a membership of at least 24,744.

That’s a pretty big number. What would that look like? Something like this:

If it had the same ratio as NCCTA, then that number would be around 88,000.

Lie #2 – 100 million dollars will help schools open safely this fall.

There are 117 LEA’s in North Carolina. I work in Winston-Salem / Forsyth County Schools. That’s just one of those LEA’s. It take tens of millions to implement Plan B.

It will take a LOT MORE THAN 100 MILLION safely reopen schools.

Lie #3 – “He said NCAE was ‘nowhere to be seen’ when the General Assembly appropriated money for schools to deal with pandemic-related issues.”

That “he” is Pat Ryan, spokesperson for Phil Berger.

And that’s ridiculous. NCAE is right down the road from Berger’s office. Actually Berger hides anytime they want to talk. Case in point (again):

Lie #4 – “…because of wise budget decisions over the last decade that make our state one of the best-positioned in the country to outlast the recession.”

When you don’t spend enough money to begin with on public education and social services over the last decade of course you can boast a rainy day fund. Just look at the per-pupil expenditure in 2008 compared to 2020 when adjusted for inflation.

And this is coming from the office of the man who made sure that there is still no budget passed for 2020-2021.

But as long as they are playing math, maybe this will help. From Wake NCAE President Kristen Beller:

The .6% guy and .2% guy fibbing about 5% of teachers.

And Berger and Moore got those percentages because of gerrymandering.