Over this legislative season, I have been proud to work in the North Carolina Senate to create lasting and real change to better the lives of citizens in District 48 and across the state. Some of the changes that I am most proud of are the changes that we have made to education.
In this budget we have simultaneously worked to increase education
spending and increase teacher salary, while preserving the Republican
Senate’s commitment to lowering class size.
Since October 2016, the
four major newspapers in District 48 have printed over 40 articles
criticizing the legislature for working to maintain lower class sizes
for K-3 students. This number includes six articles written since
February 9th, 2018- a date after the session in which the legislature
addressed all concerns of the education community. The legislature
allotted an additional $61,359,225 to cover the costs of all specials
teachers and an additional $57.8 million to the schools in counties that
may be affected by the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Not once was I, the
Senator for District 48 and a member of the Senate Education Committee,
asked to provide a comment or insight for any of these six
articles.
Even after these changes, these six articles continued the
negative slant on what the legislature has done for education. An
article titled “Schools to get more time, money to meet class size
mandate” by Andrew Mundhenk published in the Hendersonville Times-News
on February 8th, 2018 stated “A new deal announced by state lawmakers
Thursday spares Henderson County elementary schools from meeting a class
size mandate that would have threatened physical education, art, music
and other enhancement programs.” This article could have just as easily
read “State lawmakers pass legislation that fully funds lowered
teacher-to-pupil ratios, giving teachers more time to spend with
students so to improve their chances to learn the skills they will
require to get a great education.”
If these journalists had come to
me for a comment, I would have told them that we were waiting on numbers
from each Local Educating Authority (LEA) to see how much money would
need to be allotted to cover funding. I would have also shared that I
had personally met with each superintendent in our district, spoken to
school boards and PTOs to discuss the disconnect in our funding and the
money they claimed was missing. From the beginning, this was not an
“unfunded mandate” as the media liked to call it. Funding increased to
LEAs to account for the change. We had to take time to learn about what
that money was used for and by how much funding needed to increase
before acting. These were issues I worked tirelessly to understand, as
did my Senate counterparts.
Instead of playing politics with our
children’s education, efforts would have been better spent on
understanding both sides of this issue. However, the media continued to
focus in on the negative. The facts are that education spending
increased to over $700 million, North Carolina teachers are now
averaging over $50,000 in salary for the first time ($51,214 avg. for
2018 according to DPI), the Pre-K waitlist is now fully funded and lower
class sizes will still be achieved for K-3 students.
It is deeply
concerning that the media would mischaracterize the intentions of the
legislature in such a way. Our goals remain clear, to continue down the
path of bettering North Carolina’s education by providing for those most
affected by education policy- our teachers, students and parents. This
intent is underlined by all that the General Assembly has done over the
past legislative year. Each citizen represented by a group affected by
education policy needs to know that the legislature is working for you,
even if the media is not representing that to be true. I now believe it
is my job to share these truths with you so that no one can misinterpret
my intent.
I have remained open to hearing concerns of those
invested in education. Even creating a survey to allow citizens in my
district to share their concerns and ideas with me regarding education.
It
is my hope that this open letter can work to bridge the gap between the
objectives of this legislature and what is being shared with the public.