North Carolina, my adopted state, has passed a budget that deprofessionalizes teachers (eliminating tenure, establishing 'pay for excellence,' removing stepped increases for experience and advanced degrees), outright removes 4,000 teachers and nearly 4,000 TAs from the workforce, raises tuition at our public universities, cuts money to public schools directly, and then cuts it again by allowing some 1,400 kids to move $4,500 each from the public coffers and spend it on private school tuition. All this while establishing a flat-tax and giving tax-breaks to big business.
I have to admit that I thought we'd be talking about Kansas, Florida or Texas.
For reform-minded Democrats, this should be a wake-up call. The situation in North Carolina is the logical outcome of the policies you promote. It is not an accident, an unintended consequence of the accountability fetish or an unexpected result of 'putting students first.' The destruction of the teaching profession and the dismantling of public schools in North Carolina is exactly what the reformers (or at least the money and power behind them) have been pushing for for thirty years.
Read More