Pay Decreases Are NOT Raises...Yet Again....
Our sweet, always diligent legislature passed the new teacher pay schedule this summer, and with it touted the "largest teacher pay raise" in NC history. Except is it really a pay raise? Again, I question it, this time with numbers in front of me. So I started looking at the numbers, reminding myself of the scale I had been handed when I began teaching. It showed small but steady increases for each year I taught. In case you are one of the many who believe that teacher pay is ridiculously high, the numbers were usually around $400, with larger jumps at certain increments. Our legislature argued it wasn't competitive enough with other teacher salary scales around the country- it isn't, it didn't offer many incentives for teachers to remain in NC after finishing their education degree- it doesn't, and it needed to go. So it went. NCAE and teachers everywhere were hesitant, but at least something was being done, right? ...