North Carolina Ends Pay Boosts for Teacher Masters Degrees; Eliminates Tenure

[xo_bumblebee]

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, signed a budget bill Friday that eliminates teacher tenure and-in a rare move-gets rid of the automatic pay increase teachers receive for earning a master's degree.

Comments

[yooperchild]

I'm sorry

[romp]

I have a student loan I have to pay and the money I was basically promised for getting a Master's wasn't there.

This is what startles me. About 15-20 years ago, I considered going into teaching and looked at all the options. The pay bump from having a masters looked good but I also understood it to be largely a repaying of the cost of that schooling. To have that reneged... Damn.

[grace_om]

Ugh. I'm so sorry about this. And so sad that it's the children of NC who will suffer in the end and find themselves unequipped to succeed. There is no excuse for these fuckwits who call themselves a state legislature.

[xo_bumblebee]

A similiar situation happened to me a couple years ago. My principal retired mid-year and one of the assistant principals took over as principal. The following year, he micromanaged me so badly and marked me down for the most ridiculous things, I wound up resigning due to the lack of a union. I wasn't going to let him non-renew me (which is a kiss of death).

[dissident]

Tenure is shady to begin with so I actually approve of that part.

But seriously, driving all teachers out of the state is such a stupid thing to do, I suppose they're hoping all the higher-paying ones will simply retire early so they can hire fresh ones who will accept much lower pay.

[nekomika]

Permanent Contracts that can be broken under certain strict guidelines (30 days notice for the first two years, 60-90 to a whole year after 10 years etc) are common place where I work for good teachers.

It's not hard to get one if you don't visibly and outwardly suck and it gives the job security while providing room for teachers to be removed if they consistently show they are inadequate even after considerable support (support which doesn't exist at all in any of the places I've ever worked state-side) and extra training are given to them.

It should be hard to fire a struggling teacher who wants to improve.

It should be easy to fire an abusive one.

(Also that extra training? Anything I do for work is chargeable overtime and it can't be denied to me as overtime pay or vacation time. If that was a clause in most US school districts, you bet your butt teachers would be all over that shit.)

[alexvdl]

Straight up fuck North Carolina.

[goodssky]

agree with u.

[shortsweetcynic]

i agree. there has not been a single positive thing happening there in the last...very, very long time.

[wrestlingdog]

Seriously.

[nekomika]

What really infuriates me is that I bet these administrators, their secretaries, and all of those people who manage principals who manage principals got nice big fat pay raises... Meanwhile support staff are cut and access to support staff is reduced even further

[mickeym]

Secretaries -- administrative help staff -- won't get raises. The administrators and managers will, but everyone else... nope. :-/