North Carolina's K-12 public educational system is fundamentally broken.
It’s hard to argue with this point, yet the state has the essential tools it needs to fix its own inadequacies at its disposal.
Troves of teachers, whose skills were learned on the dime of North Carolina public universities, are leaving the state for more lucrative teaching jobs in other states.
Still others who might have otherwise been attracted to the idea of teaching won’t even consider the profession because of the dismal way the state has treated teachers, from the state capital on down.
Teaching is not seen as a viable way to earn a living by some of North Carolina’s brightest, most passionate students, and that spells disaster for the future of the state’s educational system.
When people like Zoe Locklear, dean of UNC-Pembroke’s School of Education, are encouraging their students to flee to South Carolina for better work opportunities, it should serve as a wake-up call to state leaders.
Meager pay raises that barely keep up with inflation will not be enough to fix this system, and crying about self-created budget constraints put in place to benefit the state’s elite shows backwards values.
The state needs to fundamentally shift its priorities, raise teacher pay further and stop mindless cuts to educational programs like the N.C. Teaching Fellows scholarship program.
