"Analysis of state-level data finds North Carolina dead last among all 50 states and the District of Columbia for places to work as a teacher. "RALEIGH – North Carolina is the worst state in the country for teachers, the Greensboro News and Record reports today. According to a study by personal finance website WalletHub, North Carolina ranks dead last among all states plus Washington, DC. "The WalletHub study combed through statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics, the U.S Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and other groups to determine the best and worst states for teachers. After analyzing factors like ten-year change in teacher pay, teaching wage disparities, safety of schools and public school per student funding, WalletHub released their report showing North Carolina at the very bottom of the rankings -- behind even Mississippi."
I looked at that article and it proved very little. The school system that spent the most per student, the District of Columbia, also had the worst results. The "experts" who guided the study were all professional education bureaucrats. Not surprisingly, they tended to give high rankings to heavily unionized systems with high salaries. Whether taking on unsustainable burdens of lavish salaries and benefits is in the state's best interest was not examined.
You can look at all the recent surveys of North Carolina teachers. Pay is the top reason for leaving by a huge margin. The items that you mention above are at the very bottom of the list of complaints. The cost of living in nearby states - South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, etc. is similar to the cost of living in North Carolina but the teacher salaries are $10K more. Anyone who does not understand that teacher compensation in North Carolina is not a crisis is being willfully blind. This may be a good time to point out: - the number of teachers leaving teaching in North Carolina has hit an all time high; both in % and number. - the number of teachers leaving mid-year has hit record highs in 2014. - the number of teacher vacancies in North Carolina is at a record high. Many schools are missing 20% or more of their necessary teaching staff and cannot find certified replacement staff. - North Carolina discontinued its Teaching Fellows program which attracted top high school students into teaching. - the number of teachers graduating North Carolina universities is at a record low in two decades. The majority of teaching graduates are leaving North Carolina and teaching in other states.
No teacher is going to report on a survey that the reason they quit is that black thugs made the environment too distateful to endure. And if it's all salary, why do so many quit the first year? It's not like they didn't know what they would be paid. I say for many it's the clash of naive liberal ideals with painful reality.
"Other" is not top of the list, either. They quit because they're paid so poorly as teachers, almost any other occupation can pull them away.
Teachers should only be paid enough in public schools to fill the jobs. No more. The notion that you won't get quality teachers that way is willfully blind. Teachers are not paid for being good teachers. They are paid according to seniority. When you say you need to pay more to get good teachers, that is complete bull. How do you know whether they are good or not. All they go by is years of service to determine compensation.
Anecdotal observational data is always the refuge of those who are faced with what they don't want to hear.
So how do you explain the teacher turnover at the many public schools in North Carolina that have a 90% plus white population. Actually most young teachers don't quit the first year, most quit in years 3 to 5 because at this point in their career they can easily be hired as 'experienced' in any of the nearby states and get a $14K to $20K boost in salary. As long as the teacher is not tied down with personal / family commitments in North Carolina it is easy for them to pick-up and move. Older teachers in North Carolina are the ones staying in place. Most are tied down with family commitments, and have put so many years in already for pension qualification that it does not make sense to move on. This is unfortunate because the older teachers are the ones that have the most problems with technology needed to modernize our classrooms, and the state has cut all budget for teacher technology training. Younger teachers are very comfortable with technology and can use modern tech tools (smart boards, homework bulletin boards, etc.) to "flip the classroom" etc. and enhance learning. However the younger teachers have the largest turnover of teachers leaving NC public schools - over 90% of them point to salary as the primary reason. A mere decade ago (when NC ranked 26th in salary and was near the national average) we had many young teachers moving to North Carolina as a preferred place to teach - that has certainly changed.
When I started a start-up did I simply pay enough to fill the programming jobs. Or did I put out top salaries to attract the top programmers. Hint: Most successful tech start-ups put out top compensation to attract top quality tech talent.