There are many things that could go on this list, and if you are a public school advocate in this state and have been paying attention these last dozen years, then these should come as no surprise.

Maybe the worst part is that each of these actions / conditions work in synchronicity with the others; they are not mutually exclusive. Rather they are strengthened in force when enacted at the same time. They travel the same morally depraved avenues and exacerbate symptoms of a much worse malady: greed for power.

North Carolina can do better.

First on this list is the recent selfish act by a state political party to pass surreptitious legislation totally anathema to voters’ wishes because they are sore losers. Senate Bill 382 offers no direct aid to hurricane victims, but rather spends the bulk of its contents explaining how it will remove power from offices to which people were already elected.

A gerrymandered state will do that.

This teacher is not thankful for the expansion of a voucher scheme that is the most non-transparent system of its kind in the nation and is not designed to help lower-income minority students in the state. It’s nothing more than the financing of religious segregation academies that will cripple rural school systems.

I am not thankful we live in a state that has the lowest corporate tax rate in the nation and ranks in the bottom 5 in state support for public education.

This teacher in not thankful for how veteran teachers are treated as far as salary is concerned. No more longevity pay. Graduate degrees are no longer honored for hires in the last ten years. In fact, salaries get FROZEN for a decade.

And I am not thankful that North Carolina still practices a Jim Crow era law that makes collective bargaining illegal.