RALEIGH – Two new reports over the weekend revealed how, since 2010, Republicans in Raleigh have eroded North Carolina’s public education system and ended many public service pathways to a middle-class lifestyle.
The National Education Association released their annual report detailing North Carolina’s teacher pay and per-pupil spending. The numbers are telling:
- North Carolina ranks 37th in the nation for average teacher pay, dropping 16 spots since 2001-02.
- NC pays our teachers nearly $10,000 less than the national average ($50,861 vs. $60,483); adjusting for inflation, NC’s average teacher salary dropped more than 13 percent since 2000.
- NC is ranked 39th in the nation in per-pupil spending this year.
- NC spends $2,400 less per-pupil than the U.S. average ($9,528 vs. $11,934).
Not only has our world-class public education system suffered but so have our teachers, who once looked to teaching as a pathway to a middle-class lifestyle. Teaching positions, like all public-sector jobs across state and local governments, have been slashed by Republican budgets since 2010; public sector jobs account for the smallest share of the North Carolina civilian work force since 2001.
According the New York Times, these cuts across the board come with serious results:
For generations of Americans, working for a state or local government — as a teacher, firefighter, bus driver or nurse — provided a comfortable nook in the middle class. No less than automobile assembly lines and steel plants, the public sector ensured that even workers without a college education could afford a home, a minivan, movie nights and a family vacation.
In recent years, though, the ranks of state and local employees have languished even as the populations they serve have grown. They now account for the smallest share of the American civilian work force since 1967.
The 19.5 million workers who remain are finding themselves financially downgraded.
In North Carolina, a federal report blamed a 25 percent job vacancy rate at a state prison in Elizabeth City for four deaths that occurred during a breakout attempt.
The erosion of our public education system and our middle class are not by chance; they’re direct results of Republican priorities that value privatization and tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. We’re just now seeing the fruit of those priorities.
“Republican efforts to undermine our public schools and middle-class jobs has been a feature, not a bug, leaving North Carolina less competitive and worse off,” NCDP Executive Director Kimberly Reynolds said. “Their slash and burn approach to our state and local government hurts our teachers, our workers, and our future generations, and Democrats promise to make sure voters know about it this November.”
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