NC Lieutenant Governor Proposes Paying for Teacher Raises with Donations

Yesterday, North Carolina Governor McCrory announced his plans to raise teacher pay in the short term with an average 2% raise, he also introduced a plan to raise teacher pay in the long-term. These long term plans were to raise pay based on a combination of experience, education, merit and market-need. The big question is always how do you pay for this when the North Carolina Legislature severely cut revenue last year, and it has been reported recently that there is already a $445 million shortfall? It would appear that our North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest has an idea for paying for these teacher pay raises: Let’s pay for them by donation.

According to WRAL this morning, Lieutenant Governor Forest is proposing to gather donations from specialized license plates, taxpayer donations, and corporate donations to pay for the new teacher pay raises proposed by McCrory, (See “Forest Proposes Endowment Fund to Raise Teacher Salaries.” ) Instead of finding tax revenue, Forest’s plan is to rely totally on donations for fund teacher pay raises. Forest states that it is a “creative response to tough economic times.” I would grant that it is perhaps a “creative” response and probably one someone who is tax-averse would suggest. Perhaps our entire government’s salaries should be paid by donation? If our Lieutenant Governor or Governor were paid “by donation” too, we could simply stop donating if they aren't doing the job we thought they should be doing.

The real problem with Forest’s suggestion is that it might really illustrate that our current state government is still not entirely committing to paying teachers what they deserve. Instead of biting the bullet and finding existing money or new revenue, they are going to resort to essentially what State Senator Josh Stein calls “voluntary taxation.” Methinks Lientenant Forest’s proposal has to be one of the most bizarre ideas yet to come out of this current state government. I give Forest a A for ‘”off-this-planet” thinking, and an F for really being committed to finding ways to pay teachers what they deserve.

NC Governor McCrory Proposes Pay Raise and Merit Pay Scheme for NC Teachers

According to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory’s press conference (which you can see here from WRAL), he is going to seek the following in his budget which he plans to present to the North Carolina State Legislature:

• Expansion of early childhood education by about $3.6 million.
• Increase textbook funding by $23 million.
• Increase beginning teacher pay from $30,800 to $35,000 over the next two years.
• Provide an average 2% pay raise for experienced teachers.
• Institute a new long-term pay plan for teachers that combines experience, education, merit, mentoring, and market needs. In addition he seeks to offer higher pay to teachers choosing to work in hard-to-staff schools.

At this point, it appears that McCrory’s long-term pay plan which he called “Career Pathways for Teachers” looks to be a compromise between the idea of merit pay and traditional ways in which teachers are rewarded. Giving teachers pay raises based on experience and degrees formed the basis of North Carolina’s previous teacher pay scales.

What will be perhaps harder to implement is the idea of merit pay, especially if based on test scores. The obvious problems being that not all teachers’ classes are subject to tests, and the fact that current use of value-added and growth scores are being increasingly challenged in the courts. I would also add that the reliability and validity of value-added measures and their use in a high-stakes manner are also disputed as well. Add these concerns with the fact that studies on merit pay tied to student achievement mostly show that such pay schemes do not work any way, and it would seem this part of the pay plan is a waste of time and money. 

McCrory’s idea to offer higher pay to teachers choosing to teach in hard-to-staff schools is also not surprising. This has been tried as well and with mixed results. McCroy’s idea of letting market conditions determine teacher pay may seem sound to those outside education, but one can only imagine what that measure will do to morale and collaboration in a school.

Governor McCrory also stated that he was committed to moving the decisions regarding this differentiated pay scheme to the local level which is interesting, but it remains to be seen how that will actually be implemented. The question will be how much freedom local districts will really have and how much will be dictated from above. Also, how willing are districts to take on this task? Most struggled with simply trying to identify the top 25% under a bill passed during last year’s legislative session. This was due in part to trying to find a way to fairly and effectively identify deserving teachers. Is the legislature willing to budget enough money for everyone who qualifies, even if that amount is more? Or would they simply give districts a set amount of money and tell them to distribute it as a bonus? Performance pay schemes have been implemented before in North Carolina but were abandoned when the state could no longer afford them. Under the old North Carolina ABC for Accountability program, teachers could receive $1,500 or $750 based on their school’s test performance. This pay stopped when the budget collapsed and there was no political will to find the money to continue funding it. Will politicians in Raleigh be committed to the pay scheme or will they once again abandon it when “times get tough?”

As an educator, I applaud Governor McCrory for listening to educators which it is clear that he has done in some of his proposals. All teachers do deserve pay increases. The past few years have not been kind to North Carolina teachers and teachers nationwide. The real test Governor McCrory faces is whether he can get this plan, or some variation of it, through a legislature that has demonstrated an incredible unwillingness to budge from many of its far right stances.