The teacher pay question NC Republicans want to avoid

The governor and lieutenant governor have begun a fresh debate on an issue that should never grow stale: North Carolina’s inadequate pay for public school teachers.

The dispute flared up again last week when Gov. Roy Cooper sent a letter to N.C. teachers and school personnel explaining why this year’s raises have become a casualty of a budget dispute with Republicans, and why the governor didn’t think a separate Republican bill offering a 3.9 percent raise for teachers was good enough. “As the professionals who take great care of our students every day, you deserve better,” the letter said.

Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, who is running to unseat Cooper in 2020, responded the next day with a letter of his own and some talking points Republicans have long trotted out on teacher pay. Some are true, such as the fact that Republicans have increased N.C. teacher pay by 20 percent to an average of $8,600 (with some help from county supplements). Some are incomplete, such as the claim that Republicans also have increased overall public school funding in North Carolina, when the reality is that state spending has declined on a per-pupil basis when growth in the student population and inflation are factored in.

It’s a not a new debate, and it’s one that’s sure to keep bubbling to the surface regardless of who gets the Republican nomination for governor next year. Each time it does, Republicans should answer a simple question about the people who educate the children of our state. Should N.C. teachers be treated worse than the average teacher in the United States?

Right now, they are. N.C. average teacher pay about $7,800 below the latest national average of $61,782, and even after recent raises, our state remains in the bottom half of U.S. teacher pay rankings. Cooper wants to change that. His veto of Republicans’ 3.9 percent average pay raise was followed with a counteroffer of an 8.5 percent average raise for N.C. teachers, along with a 5 percent raise for non-certified school personnel instead of the 2 percent Republicans wanted. Cooper also has offered to sit with Republican leaders and hammer out a pay raise compromise. Those discussions haven’t happened yet.

Instead, Republicans including Forest continue to tout what they’ve done for teachers instead of acknowledging what still needs to be done. Doing so would force them to confront an inescapable truth — that rather than quickly bring N.C. teacher pay to a level that would discourage educators from leaving for other states or other professions, Republicans prefer that money go toward sustaining tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. Those tax cuts don’t benefit teachers or most struggling North Carolinians, and they haven’t produced the exemplary growth that Republicans promised.

By the way, even Cooper’s teacher pay increase would leave N.C. teachers short of the national average, especially those who don’t benefit from more affluent counties that provide pay supplements. That average continues to be a worthy target, one that North Carolina governors long ago recognized was important. Decades ago, both Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt and Republican Gov. Jim Martin thought North Carolina’s lagging teacher pay was unacceptable. Both raised it, with Hunt reaching the national average in four years.

Today’s teachers deserve the same. It’s the right answer to a simple question, and Republicans should sit down with the governor to craft a similar path now.

This story was originally published December 11, 2019 at 5:00 AM.