State Sen. Phil Berger, R-Guilford, needs to go back to school.
In a recent speech at BEST NC, the President Pro Tempore of the N.C. Senate called teacher assistants outdated (comparing them to typewriters) and then accused North Carolina public schools of lacking innovation.
While Berger is entitled to his opinion, in order to better perform his duties this board is calling upon him to take a trip to any public school and see for himself the day-to-day work of teacher assistants and educators.
Ultimately, he’s a representative of the people and should be visiting schools anyway. This shouldn’t be seen as an absurd challenge and should be his job. His colleague, Sen. Jeff Jackson, D-Mecklenburg, has.
Berger also said education schools are lacking in innovation, so The Berger Tour of Education should not stop at elementary schools. He should go all the way to college by also attending a class at UNC’s School of Education to see if he still cannot see innovation in the field.
In all seriousness, this challenge would not be that fruitful. Berger has not actually expounded upon his criticisms and it seems many of his claims fall flat. The best part is he uses poorly thought out comparisons to make his points seem “intelligent.”
He boasts incremental raises for teachers, but then attacks the very work educators are doing. This is all a part of his ideological warfare to privatize and commodify education.
So while visiting schools may not do anything to change his opinion, it would allow him to meet the people he calls obsolete and give them the chance to represent themselves.
