Three years ago, sitting in East’s Career Information Center, I completed a virtual test on Naviance along with the rest of my English class. My top career paths? Crossing guard or mortician.
Now, even at 14, I knew not to take these personality-based career tests too seriously. Yet, North Carolina will soon be investing $1.5 million into these unscientific assessments in the name of “historic investment” in education under the new budget bill, SB105, which was signed into law by Governor Roy Cooper Nov. 18.
Though a minute aspect of a much larger piece of legislation, this specific undertaking among numerous substantial gaps exemplifies the generally oblivious approach Senate Republicans took toward the long-needed education budget.
Nearly two years ago, I wrote an article about East teachers advocating for a then-overdue education budget with pay raises for educators, after the last one passed in 2018. Now, finally, a bill has passed—but it is nowhere near enough.
Positive things
In a divided state like North Carolina, we have to take all we can get, and the difficulty of negotiation and compromise necessary cannot be diminished. Here are some of the bill’s positives, which are brief enough to be summarized into a quick list:
- There is a budget at all.
- Teacher pay raises and bonuses exist.
- All school workers will have a $15 minimum wage.
- There is some (though not enough) funding for school renovations.
- Each school district will get funding for one psychologist.
Despite her reservations and higher aspirations, state senator Valerie Foushee, a Democrat whose district includes East, voted for the budget bill because of her support for these benefits.
“At some point, you have to make the decision: Do I go for something or settle for nothing yet again?“ Sen. Foushee told me.
Let’s look at the “something” that North Carolina has now.
Follow the money
The new budget comes with a catchy tagline of an “average 5 percent pay raise for teachers.” Not to mention the fact that N.C. Democrats pushed for an eight to 10 percent raise while Republicans aimed for three percent, the actual increase for most teachers ends up being a measly 1.3 percent. The average is only five percent over the next two years if specific step increases for newer teachers are calculated in—not applicable to most teachers.
This is a 1.3 percent pay raise for teachers who have waited four years to see any change at all. A 1.3 percent increase in a state ranked 33rd in the nation for teacher pay, a metric already artificially inflated by local supplements in addition to state-budgeted salaries.
The lauded $2,800 per teacher bonuses are also misleading. In Orange County, which includes CHCCS, each teacher is expected to get a $647 supplement according to the Fiscal Research Division of the General Assembly. Some urban districts, such as in Wake or Durham Counties, do not receive any supplements from the state, under the assumption that local supplements are adequate.
In 2021, N.C. ranks low among states for public K-12 funding. Source: educationdata.org. Graph created by Caroline Chen/The ECHO.
At the same time, SB105 includes significant tax cuts. The state’s 2.5 percent corporate income tax, already the lowest among the 44 states which have one, would be completely eliminated by the end of the decade, starting in 2025. The individual income tax rate also would decrease beginning next year.
Investment in education (private schools only)
It’s similarly significant that the budget includes wording to promote school choice. By making financial-need requirements for scholarships lower, the state essentially subsidizes students with public taxpayer funds to attend private schools.
These “school voucher” programs originated in response to Brown v. Board of Education, when white families wanted to keep their children in segregated schools and were thus granted vouchers to attend private schools. Now they are typically painted as a way for minority and low-income children to leave their public schools with insufficient funding and resources.
Known as “Opportunity Scholarships,” its expansion includes a higher income threshold and a scholarship increase from $4,200 to $5,900. Sen. Foushee described a lack of significant demonstrated need for the program even under the current standards, before the program’s expansion in 2021.
“Now [we’re] talking about people who don’t have financial need,” Sen. Foushee said. “[North Carolina is] just providing public dollars for people to attend non-public schools that have no responsibility to [us]. In my opinion, [we] are funding possible discrimination. [We] are funding institutions that can turn people away, with public dollars.”
This makes the fact that the budget trims teacher pay raises from schools in urban counties in the name of spending more on rural schools ironic—it does not align with the continued funding of school vouchers. It is not debatable that there are significant issues with teacher retention and school resources in many rural districts in North Carolina, and these gaps need to be addressed. However, Opportunity Scholarships are not a solution; rather, they are a diversion that exacerbates current problems with school performance and funding.
It’s also important to remember that the budget also happened in the midst of Leandro, a North Carolina court case through which a state judge ordered the legislature to pass $1.7 billion to fund public education in June. The original 1997 case said that under the state constitution, each N.C. child is promised a “sound, basic education.” However, despite the original ruling and recent court orders, Senate Republicans said the judge was “rogue” and ignored the request.
According to an analysis from Every Child NC, rural and low income counties would gain the most from the Leandro plan. How much does the state really care about rural public schools, then? The approach appears to be to divest funding from schools, watch the repercussions fall out, and repeat the vicious cycle.
The disconcerting, but revealing career quiz addition
In the new budget bill, the Department of Public Instruction is told to “implement an education planning and communication platform that helps students and parents… to connect and match students to current opportunities in high demand careers.”
The company recommended is called ScholarPath, a platform that helps high school students “find their calling” in a variety of careers, including the military, initially through “interest surveys.” It currently operates in three public school districts in St. Louis, MO.
The categories used to interpret students’ “Best Fit” include GPA, attendance and demographics. If the program is anything like the dozens of other similar career tests that can be summoned by a single Google search, it is insignificant at best and potentially racially-targeted and demoralizing at worst.
In comparison to the bill’s effective funding for private schools, this is a demeaning gesture that shows Senate Republicans’ true colors toward public school students. Just throw $1.5 million at a problem and hope it’ll fix itself, instead of actually addressing issues of career preparatory curricula and materials funding in high schools.
Screenshot from ScholarPath’s website.
Listen to our public schools
All of this is not to say that the budget being passed is a bad thing—we do need something to happen. But, as it is now, the N.C. budget bill is far from perfect. The concern is less that 12th graders will be specifically funded to use MyScholar to decide their careers, but more so that the Senate prioritizes tax cuts, private schools and even ineffectual app developers over actually giving public schools what they need.
Given shortages of bus drivers, cafeteria workers and nurses that we’ve seen across the state, a $15 minimum wage for public school staff is critical. It’s also great to have increased incentives to retain teachers in rural counties. It is good that there are $1,000 bonuses for counselors, funding for one additional school psychologist per district, and a 2.5 percent pay raise for principals.
But, we can do so much more, and we need to. These are razor-thin margins of improvement, especially considering the absence of action since 2018. The state needs to focus on what public schools genuinely want and need.
Teachers need real pay raises—not 1.3 or even five—10 percent. They should be reimbursed for degrees which they invested in on their own. Over divestment into private schools, rural public schools need broadband internet access. As we constantly see headlines about statewide shortages from urban Mecklenburg to rural Warren Counties, we need more investment in retaining staff, and we have to do more than raise the minimum wage pay. In CHCCS, despite thousands of dollars in hiring bonuses and a higher minimum wage, there are still severe shortages in many school positions. As one long-time bus driver at East told me, they need “more than hiring bonuses. [They] need retention pay.”
I know that we live in a state which hadn’t passed a budget to raise teacher pay for four years. I know it’s the same legislature that passed an anti-Critical Race Theory bill in August. The same legislature which rejected the Leandro court order. I just hope that it is not too naive to continue wishing that even such a state legislature can come to see the light, for their future generations.
Image created by Caroline Chen/The ECHO.
