Gene McLaurin is a former state Senator and mayor of Rockingham, NC. A small business owner, McLaurin is a product of our public schools.
How many people remember favorite teachers from elementary school? What about from junior high or middle school? From high school or even from the community college or college or university you attended? While serving as a mayor and a state senator, I spent countless hours in school classrooms talking with young people about citizenship, leadership, history, state and local government, and a host of other subjects. Every time I left the classroom, I was inspired by how dedicated our teachers are and what a positive difference they make in the lives of their students.
This week is Teacher Appreciation Week. I hope you will join me in taking the time to call or even write a note to a few of your teachers or former teachers and simply say-Thanks! Thank you for believing in me, for encouraging me, for challenging me, for being patient with me and for helping me reach my goals. Thank you for making a positive difference in my life.
Teachers have the most important jobs in society, and teachers are vastly underappreciated and underpaid here in NC. Our teachers deserve more support, better pay and our respect. A decade ago in NC, teachers were paid at the national average. Today, NC is ranked near the bottom in both teacher pay and in per pupil spending. We can and must do better, but it will take more than words, it will take commitment from everyone, including the business community, legislators, parents, and citizens. Our children and grandchildren, regardless of their status in life, deserve a quality education.
A recent column in the Wall Street Journal by Dan Greenstein of the Gates Foundation and Jamie Merisotis of the Lumina Foundation made the following observations:
“Education remains the chief American institution that promotes economic and social mobility for poor and disadvantaged citizens.. It’s the direct answer to the question of what the nation needs to improve its talent pool and improve economic opportunity and social equality. Education is the clearest and best way to develop talent and build the skills so important to our economic and social well-being”.
I agree and believe now is the time for all North Carolinians to join together and support our teachers, our schools, and our students as we prepare for the future. NC leaders should set their sights high and commit to becoming the Education State.
To every teacher in North Carolina – thank you for your dedication. You are making a difference and I am grateful.
As a teacher, I appreciate Mr. McLaurin’s words and kindness. I am also actively looking for other states to live in, or other fields of work so that I can get out of the teaching gig… I can deal with somewhat low pay as the cost of better job security, but when I have neither good pay nor job security, what am I staying for? I’ve been teaching for 23 years, and I am better at it every year. I LOVE my job, I LOVE my students, and I LOVE learning. I have two degrees, National Board Certification, and go to every training in my field of biology, genetics, chemistry, and applied genetics that I can get my hands on. I teach AP courses, which take huge amounts of time to prep for, and receive no extra money. This year, I have three different preps (earth science, chemistry, AP Biology) with no extra time to plan… so I have pretty much sacrificed my personal life this year to do school work, often for hours every night. For what? Yes, for the kids…. but that many hours with very little thanks and very little incentive, makes a big ball of stress out of a person who was once bubbly and energetic, someone who used to walk into her classroom with a zest for science, and “infected” my students with the same zest….. it’s a shame.
Teachers are fleeing the system. McCrory has named Todd Chasteen – a censor and foe of public education – to the state Board of Education.
The damage done by NCGOP to NC education will have a lasting and terrible impact on our children – and on our state. Have no idea why NCGOP does not want our children to be competitive with children who live in states that DO invest in education. Shame on them.
Someone posted this on facebook yesterday. “Teaching is the profession that creates all other professions.” I sent it to Moore and Berger. I doubt if they will read it or do any better with funding K-12 education.
My parents had a total of 13 years’ education: Mom finished 8th grade before going to work in a mill, and my dad skipped 1st grade (so he and his older brother only had to pay for one set of books) and got through 6th before starting work at a sawmill to help support his widowed mother. They were both passionate readers–we pretty well used up our county’s public libraries (and bookmobile in summer)–and sent 2 of their 3 children to college (one opted for the military instead). When I was at Duke, my family still used an outhouse: they believed education was more important than indoor plumbing. Some of my fellow students used to ask to go home with me on breaks so they could “see how the lower classes lived”. Therein, I think, lies a good part of the problem. Our society is so stratified that people with money have no idea what the lives of people without it are like: they see us (if they see us at all in this era of class-segregated housing) as a different–and inferior–species. When I heard a well-to-do person ask, on the issue of voter IDs, “Can’t they just use their passports for identification?” I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
Let’s face it: the GOP has nothing to gain from educating “the lower classes”. The last thing they want is for us to learn critical-thinking skills.
“A decade ago in NC, teachers were paid at the national average. Today, NC is ranked near the bottom in both teacher pay and in per pupil spending. We can and must do better…”
The NCGOP has been in charge of the state’s purse strings since Jan. of 2011, i.e., for more than 4 years of that decade.
And despite their claims, the GOP hasn’t yet significantly moved the needle on raising NC’s teacher pay and per student spending relative to other states.
They have done nothing to help our most veteran and experienced educators.
They have lied outright to teachers (before last year’s pay increase vote, Sen. Berger told teachers “they would not be losing their longevity pay.” But longevity pay was indeed taken from long-time educators).
And they have constantly portrayed teachers in a bad light for decades, right up to the present day.
This is clearly NOT doing “better”…….