Category: funding

Farcical, but Not Amusing

STATE LEGISLATURE (NCGA): Goll-lee Moses! We’re spending way too much on education! The public schools are eating up dang near 40% of our whole dadgum budget! DISTRICTS: We need money for textbooks. We need money for classroom supplies. We need more money to pay for these expensive class-size reductions that y’all are requiring, but haven’t paid for. If you won’t increase our allotments, we’ll have to lay off all of our Art, Music, and PE teachers so we can build more classrooms and hire more K – 3 teachers. NCGA: Taxpayers will have our heads when they see how much we’re spending on the schools! We’re giving y’all the same amount we gave you 10 years ago—why isn’t that enough? Where’s all that money going, […]

Read more

Things are Dippy over at DPI

The new website didn’t help matters. Ever since he took office in January 2017, relations between NC Superintendent of Schools Mark Johnson and advocates for the state’s teachers and public schools have grown ever more acrimonious. If Johnson had wanted to establish warmth and collegiality with teachers and the various groups that claim to speak for them, several missteps have placed obstacles in the path: He commented, during a Q&A session at a statewide meeting of school boards, that a starting salary of $35,000 for new teachers was “a lot of money” for starting teachers, presumably in their 20s. At the time (January 2018), the Raleigh News & Observer reported that Johnson himself was earning  $127,561. He tweeted that teacher pay was “on the right […]

Read more

Are We Funding Our Schools Adequately?

Amid gasps of outrage from the conservative blogosphere, the Wake County Board of Education (BoE) submitted their annual budget request to the Wake County Commission during the first week of May, 2018. Each year when the official request is submitted, letters from the BoE and district Superintendent that accompany the full report inform the commissioners about the school system’s plans to improve the quality of district schools and provide some context for the present budget request. Monica Johnson-Hostler, Chair of the Wake BoE, wrote a more succinct letter this year than in 2017. She does not mince words when it comes to recent funding shortfalls: “state support, which provides the majority of funding for the school system, has lagged behind local efforts.” She adds that “public […]

Read more

Transportation

Round-trip bus service to traditional public schools is free of charge in Wake County. Native North Carolinians might take the free school transportation for granted, but nationwide, free busing is not universal. In Orange County, CA, for example, a $335 “bus pass” is required if your child needs to ride the bus to a public school. And that fee pales in comparison with the fee in San Diego County, California, where the district charges $575 per year, per child. Massachusetts, Hawaii, and Colorado also have districts that levy substantial transportation fees. Many Wake County parents take advantage of the free transportation option for their children because it’s efficient, safe, and reliable, and Wake County residents should appreciate the reduction in traffic jams that the buses produce. Approximately […]

Read more