Where are North Carolina’s Teachers?

On the first day of school some children across our state will arrive to find no teacher in their classroom. 

Every headline about the impact of the lack of teachers on the opening of school this year contains the word ‘crisis.’ 

Superintendents in 98 of 115 North Carolina school districts report 11,297 teacher and staff vacancies:  3,619 K-12 teachers, 1,342 bus drivers, 850 special education teachers, 354 counselors, social workers and psychologists; 70 assistant principals, 698 central office employees, and more than 4,362 other support staff. Consider the teacher shortage alone.    

This is devastating news for our children, for the teachers, and for our state.  How did we get to this point?  The Republican-led North Carolina Legislature is starving our schools.  The Legislature has advanced business interests and politics ahead of the people in North Carolina.  2022 represents a new low in NC government spending as a share of the economy—only 4.59% of our economy is wrapped up in our state budget.  Beginning in 2010, state spending has been decreasing steadily.  Before 2010 on average 6% of our economy was in our state budget.  That number has fallen steadily since.  The message is that our GOP-led Legislature cares little about the children of North Carolina. 

Where are the teachers?  Teachers have been making do for a while.  Pay is low, 43rd in the nation for beginning teachers.  In the southeastern section of the US, NC’s starting salary for a teacher ranks lower than all states except Mississippi and Arkansas.  Instead of going to the classroom, teachers are going to jobs that pay a fair wage.

Running a school without a complete staff forces the principal to stretch the existing staff to cover the classes, putting extra demands on the remaining teachers. For example, teachers will be asked to teach during planning period or teach a larger class of 30 or 35 students instead of 20.  Already under pressure to help make up deficits from Covid times, teachers will find themselves under added pressure, exacerbating attrition and ensuring a faster fall to the bottom.   

Principals and Superintendents used to have a strong pipeline for hiring teachers.  As a result of decreases in state funding for higher education,  between 2012 and 2020, enrollment in UNC education programs has dropped a total of 35%.  UNC Universities are the main trainer of public-school teachers in NC.  The NC Teaching Fellows was a great teacher training program that provided scholarships to teachers who agreed to teach in North Carolina for four years.  State funding was withdrawn in 2011 and now the state is trying to reestablish the program. 

All these explanations about the reasons we do not have enough teachers point fingers back to the NC Legislature and the Republican plan to only allocate 4.59% of the economy to the budget.  If the goal was to spend the long-term average of 6%, our schools would be funded.  We would have adequate pay for teachers and have a pipeline of teachers ready to fill the needed positions.

We are tired of a Republican Legislature that is starving our schools.  We need to elect Democrats.  My child is ready for school, her school should be ready for her. This is a crisis. 

We need Legislators whose goals are to provide public services to our people—vote for Democrats!