The NC Senate released its proposed budget this week. In its pages the following search terms were used to find the frequency at which they were used. "school" - 953 times "teachers" - 127 "EVAAS" - 25 "achievement" - 14 "teacher salary" - 12 "teacher assistant" - 1 "graduate degree" - 0 "hurricane" - 13 … Continue reading Within the NC Senate Budget The Following Are Mentioned…

No Senate budget in the state of North Carolina gets released without Phil Berger's approval. And the one yesterday did nothing to help relieve what has been ailing public education in NC. If the NC Senate's budget has its way: Schools will still be judged by the 80/20 formula where the %80 is achievement. NC … Continue reading Call It For What It Is: Phil Berger Does Not Support Public Schools

On Tuesday afternoon, Sen. Phil Berger and other GOP leaders from the NC Senate will present their budget proposal for the next two years. Below is a snippet of the tweet sent out by his office offering some highlights. And there are some inviting numbers there. But remember that the House budget proposal that was … Continue reading Another “Berger Bonus” Is Not What We Need – Reward Versus Respect

In the long session of 2014, the NC General Assembly raised salaries for teachers in certain experience brackets that allowed them to say that an “average” salary for teachers was increased by over 7%. They called it a “historic raise.” However, if you divided the amount of money used in these “historic” raises by the … Continue reading Remember Longevity Pay? There WAS A Bill To Restore It.

You Know You Are a Middle-Aged Public School Teacher When… You pull a hamstring going up the stairs right after a fire drill. You make a reference to a movie that a student claims that his parent may have seen. You fondly look back at the time when there were no cellphones in the classroom. … Continue reading You Know You Are a Middle-Aged Public School Teacher When…

Last month a publication concerning the influence of Pearson Education was released entitled "Pearson 2025: Transforming teaching and privatising educational data." It's startling to read and yet it's not so hard to conceive of the conclusions that both researchers come to. And yes, "privatising" is correctly spelled as Pearson is based in London and their … Continue reading How Chemical Is NC’s Romance With The “Privatisation” of Public Educational Data?

Yesterday in response to the Public School Forum of North Carolina's report on "average" teacher salaries, Sen. Deanna Ballard issues a press release in an attempt to debunk the PSFNC's findings. In short, it was a failure of an argument. Here is the text: Credibility Crisis: Average Teacher Pay Suddenly Doesn’t Matter to Liberal Activists … Continue reading Sen. Deanna Ballard’s “Credibility Crisis” – Concerning Her Press Release on Teacher Salaries

"Does Teaching Offer Career Growth?" According to Mark Johnson's flier it does. It states in the blue field above that the average NC teacher makes "over $53,000 a year" and that "the median teacher salary is now more than the median salary of someone with a 4-year college degree in NC." Maybe Johnson needs to … Continue reading Put This On A Glossy Flier: “Average teacher salaries in more than 80 percent of North Carolina’s school districts fall below the reported statewide average teacher salary of $53,975.”

Remember when Mark Johnson bought all those iPads with six million dollars that magically appeared? It could have: Funded 120 reading specialists for the school year at low-performing schools ($50k per). Funded Governor’s School for a few years. Covered the budget cut at DPI this year. Funded a full restoration of Teacher Fellow Program for … Continue reading Instead of iPads, That Six Million Dollars Could Have…

Take another look at the glossy propaganda that Mark Johnson is passing off as an informative flier for students that was used in yesterday's post. In the green section entitled "What Do Starting Teachers Make?", Johnson states: $39,300 per school year is the average salary for a beginning teacher in North Carolina." $26,400 per year … Continue reading $35,000 To $52,000 Or $24,600 To $86,291-Plus: Our State Superintendent’s Problem With Glossy Numbers