NC has fewer teachers and more students

EMERY P. DALESIO
Associated Press

RALEIGH, NC (AP) — North Carolina schools are losing teachers and adding more students.

New school data shows there were nearly 96,000 teachers in North Carolina working with more than 1.5 million students as of October.

State schools chief finance officer Philip Price says that means schools need an additional 740 teachers if the extra 17,000 students are divided into classrooms of 23 each.

Karey Harwood of the advocacy group Public Schools First says the trend of more students and fewer teachers has been underway for several years, increasing class sizes, making it more difficult for teachers to be effective, and potentially hurting student performance.

An annual teacher turnover report discussed Wednesday by the state school board says almost 14,000 teachers left their jobs last year, primarily to teach somewhere else.

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