Educators talk school funding at NCAE convention

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY)–The governor’s budget proposes starting salaries for teachers to be $35,000 a year. But leaders of the North Carolina Association of Educators say that only gives one-third of teachers a raise.

Educators across the state say teaching has many challenges, especially financial ones.

Karen Green, math instructor at Gregory School of Science, Math and Technology says when times get tough cuts to education happen.”I pour my heart out in my profession and to my students, and to know that we are on the chopping block to be cut it’s really devastating,” said Green.

Dallas Brown, Laney High School says teachers have to fight for funding and for their student’s education. “There always an attack on public education, on teachers, and those attacks directly translate to students in the classroom. If we don’t fight for the children they won’t fight for themselves,” said Brown.

Some educators compare fighting for funding to war. That’s exactly what these teachers from across the state say they came to do at the annual North Carolina Association of Educators convention.

NCAE President Rodney Ellis says the NCAE represents the interests of educators and students. “We are the voice of public education in North Carolina,” said Ellis.

And one issue teachers are talking about is teacher pay and Governor Pat McCrory’s plan to increase starting teacher salaries.

“But he didn’t mention anything about veteran teachers. We would like to have a comprehensive pay range where there’s a pay raise for all teachers,” said Green.

“We are very close to the bottom in our state of North Carolina and honestly, our state is better than that, our people are better than that,” said Brown.

According to officials with the NCAE, North Carolina ranks 42 out of all 50 states for teacher pay.

“It just shows a limited investment in public education and it really just hurts the students,” said Ellis.

Another major topic up for discussion at the convention was the lack of money for textbooks. Ellis says textbook funding has been cut by 75% over the last 7 years.