NC MARCH OF TEACHERS – THE 4 MYTHS OF EDUCATION FUNDING
Wednesday, May 16th, 2018
Thousands of teachers from Raleigh, Charlotte, Durham and Chapel Hill will be marching on Raleigh next week as part of a protest sponsored by the North Carolina Association of Educators.
It’s an emotional issue, to be sure. And that’s shown up in the rhetoric I’ve heard.
Republicans have “gutted” public education. Teachers aren’t respected. Classes are overcrowded.
To be clear: I think North Carolina could do more to fund public schools. I believe it is more than fair to criticize the state of public education in our state. It’s OK to say things aren’t improving fast enough.
But I also believe things are moving in the right direction — and to say that the General Assembly is anti-teacher or anti-education is demonstrably false.
[Longleaf story: The impact N.C. Republicans have had on K-12 public education, explained]
Here are the facts behind some of the overheated slogans you’ll hear.
Myth #1: Republicans have gutted education funding.
Reality: By all measures, education spending has increased in North Carolina over the past half-decade.
Total spending
In 2011, K-12 education cost North Carolina about $7.5 billion. In the most recent approved budget, that total had grown to $9 billion.
That’s $1.5 billion in additional education spending over six years, according to officially published state budgets.
Please forgive the fact that the graph does not start at zero. The House speaker’s office made the chart and wanted it to look more dramatic. Still, the numbers and the trend check out.Per pupil spending
Per pupil spending has also risen, according to reports from the National Education Association.
Per student spending by the state was $8,572 in 2011, good for 45th in the nation. By 2016, it had climbed slightly, to $8,955 — jumping three places to No. 42.
