North Carolina Teachers March on Raleigh

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew's Heard Tell SubStack for free here:

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2 Responses

  1. j r says:

    This is the basic math in the life of North Carolina kindergarten teacher Kristin Beller: one master’s degree, plus 14 years of experience, plus 10-hour workdays, plus a sometimes six-day workweek equals $51,000 in annual salary.

    The basic math part of the comment here is interesting. Which part of the equation is wrong? Should North Carolina be paying kindergarten teachers more because it requires a master’s degree and 10-hour workdays or should we stop demanding that kindergarten teacher’s have to get an expensive master’s degree and work 10-hour days? I think that I know what answer the teachers would give; although I am happy to be surprised.

    Also, there’s this bit about North Carolina being “ranked 37th in the nation for average teacher pay and 39th in per-pupil spending.” I cannot tell how that is useful information on its own. Where should North Carolina rank on teacher pay and per-pupil spending? Knowing that North Carolina spends less per-pupil on education than say Tennessee tells me nothing about whether spending is adequate for either state.

    If someone wants to just argue that higher pay is better pay and more per-pupil spending is just always better, that’s fine, but at that point we’re just talking about pure advocacy. We’re no longer trying to get to the right numbers.Report