By: Jackson Davenport
March 8th, 2021
While America deals with the coronavirus pandemic, it has highlighted glaring flaws in our education system. But education in North Carolina has been a crisis for a long time. In 2019, North Carolina received a C- and ranked 37th in education. A less-than-stellar education system has long plagued our state, but it certainly doesn’t have to be this way, and many problems from budget cuts, to overtesting, to short-sighted “reforms,” paint a picture of a struggling education system with underpaid teachers and struggling students.
Budgets
Education spending has increased an average of 3.3% per year over the past decade, and over the past five years, teachers have received a cumulative pay raise of 20%. But when the 3.3% raise is adjusted to its equivalent in 2018 dollars, we find that, due to inflation, per-pupil spending in North Carolina has declined 6% since 2009-2010, while average salaries for teachers were lower than 2003 or 2009. The state spends less on its students than it did a year ago, and budgets are clearly not keeping up with the needs of students and teachers.
Teachers
This idle funding has led to fewer employed teachers, stagnating salaries for those teachers, and less funding for schools in high poverty and disadvantaged communities (such as communities of color and working class/lower income communities). Teachers do not have enough money for supplies, even having to budget a certain number of “copies” from a printer/copier, needed to allow students to do their schoolwork. Teachers frequently have to reach into their own limited funds simply to buy supplies for their students. Our state’s teachers are exhausted, overworked, and underpaid. All of this, while being tasked with helping to raise and inform the next generation of Americans and North Carolinians. The very same children that will be running our democracy and holding our republic together one day.
Low-pay and high-stress has led to many teachers fleeing the state, or at least moving from less wealthy districts to more wealthy, better resourced schools (including private schools). The quantity of North Carolina teachers is dangerously low, and those that remain in the public school system are drained of their energy needed to help and genuinely educate students.
Publicly-Funded Private Schools
How North Carolina funds its schools, to the extent it funds them at all, is also an issue. Nearly 10% of education funding in North Carolina goes to charter schools, schools that are privately run yet publicly funded. Proponents of these schools would say they provide opportunities for disadvantaged students but they forget these schools vary massively in performance, and they cannot accept every applicant, frequently choosing to only admit applicants that they know are already likely to succeed. Many of these schools are also run for-profit, trying to squeeze as much money out of the government as possible while actually teaching their students as little as possible.
Arguments that schools will perform better if they have to compete with other schools ignore the fact that this competition means many schools will be left behind, providing their students with subpar education and little preparation for adult life. We cannot gamble with a student's future. Charter schools take away valuable resources from public schools, primarily in less wealthy areas, and siphon them into privately run schools, many for-profit and many incredibly low performing.
Mental Health
Meanwhile, the North Carolina education system shows little regard for student’s mental health, frequently overworking and over-testing them. There is a mental health epidemic in our schools, both in North Carolina and nationwide. Nearly 80% of students that have mental health issues do not receive treatment. In a given year, up to 1 in 5 students show signs of a mental health disorder. Mental health issues clearly can impact a student’s performance on tests, their gpa, and their overall educational achievement. Yet schools do not have the resources to deal with student’s mental health issues. Counselors are overworked, not to mention a near total absence of school psychologists in North Carolina. If we want students to do well in schools, and ultimately well in life, we must tackle the mental health crisis head on.
Systemic Inequality
Not to mention the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a law implementing mandatory testing for schools nationwide, to be used for school evaluation. In practice, school evaluation scores don’t measure the quality of a school, but the quality of students coming into the school (influenced by the community around them).
Schools in wealthy districts and neighborhoods are more likely to be rated higher, as schools have more funding (school funding is largely based on property taxes, meaning wealthier properties will generate more tax income for the districts) and students have access to resources such as private tutors. Meanwhile, schools in less wealthy areas (areas that tend to have higher concentrations of people of color) have less funding for their schools, and students will not have access to as many opportunities. Less funding for schools also equals less resources to help students trapping schools in a cycle of low achievement. Title I (part of federal law) aims to provide funding for lower performing schools in lower income areas, but does not go far enough to correct and make up for the disadvantages these schools typically have.
Testing
Over-testing of students cannot be entirely attributed to the No Child Left Behind Act. It can also be attributed to state law. Testing (especially when poorly designed) has been continuously shown not to be an indicator of knowledge, but rather how much a student can memorize in a period of time. Meanwhile, these tests actively cause stress for students and can even contribute to the aforementioned mental health issues.
The Impact of COVID
Coronavirus has also had a massive effect on student achievement, as online school hurts students' academic performance. Calls to completely reopen schools are short sighted, and quite-frankly deadly. The state government also has not invested enough resources in assisting students through coronavirus, or protecting teachers and students at school, though many good steps have been taken.
How We Can Fix the Issues
This is not to say there are no solutions, or we are in a completely hopeless situation. We could reverse the 2013 tax cuts, freeing up a large amount of money for education and other needed state expenditures. We could reduce the amount of tests students have to take, and the federal government could repeal the No Child Left Behind Act. Teachers could be given more benefits and more funding, and could use effective unions to fight for these benefits. Of course, these solutions would require a borderline political revolution in the state, considering the widespread gerrymandering and political suppression.
Schools could spend these new revenues on school counselors and psychologists to aid student’s mental health and assist them in their coursework. Charter schools must be more highly regulated, and we could expand the program giving future teachers in the state scholarship funds.
While the issues facing low income, frequently POC students, are more difficult, we could invest in communities to help increase their average wealth, and invest in workers rights to allow workers bargaining power for higher wages, improving the lives of students. Or focusing on education policy, Property taxes should be put into a much larger pool, possibly statewide so all schools receive similar funding/funding based on need. Or at a minimum, we could expand state and federal programs giving lower income under-resourced schools more money.
Summary
The state of Education in North Carolina is dismal, but not hopeless. Teachers are underpaid, schools are under-resourced and falling behind, and students are having trouble dealing with their coursework. It would be incredibly difficult to enact sound education policy through a legislature that has districted itself into what seems like near-permanent power. But through the right investments and sound policy focused on lifting students and staff up, the state of education could improve dramatically with time. The state legislature has been controlled by Republicans since 2011.
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