I’ve been working over the last few weeks on some issues in North Carolina around public education. On 3/23, the North Carolina Association of Educators (our branch of the NEA) voted almost unanimously (one vocal disagreement) to declare May 1 a Day of Action, on which public education workers will converge on Raleigh with five specific demands for our legislators:
Increase all public education worker wages to a minimum of $15/hour, and provide a 5% increase to all workers, and provide a 5% cost-of-living adjustment to retirees.
Restore bonus pay for teachers who obtain masters degrees or other advanced degrees.
Restore retiree benefits for all teachers hired after 2021 (in 2018 the NCGA passed a law removing retiree benefits, but it doesn’t go into effect until after the next election. Hmmm, hmmm…)
Increase to nationally-normed standards the number of social workers, psychologists, counselors, nurses, and librarians in NC schools.
Medicaid expansion.
I’m really in favor of all these demands, and will be in Raleigh on May 1. I’m not advocating any action by any of y’all, although of course fellow supporters of public education in NC are welcome to join us; rather, I figured I’d start a thread on the subject in case folks have questions, or for me to explain the issues as I understand them.
Plus, too many people argue that union members only fight for themselves to the fucking of the general population. This list of demands says otherwise. This is a great thing you guys are doing for the long-term benefit of the NC students. I would do a solidarity fist emoji here if I could.
Or, it looks like a shameless attempt to look like they aren’t only fighting for themselves. I have no problem with the teachers (individually or their organization) voicing support for Medicaid expansion but istm it shouldn’t be part of their work action. It’s not a matter of aiming high, it’s out of place in the discussion. The education system isn’t complicated enough, you want to talk healthcare too?
It’s not necessarily muddying the waters to talk about healthcare and welfare in general. If children aren’t healthy, if they aren’t getting proper nutrition and proper care, that impacts their ability to perform at school. Similarly, if teachers aren’t getting affordable access to the healthcare system, that impacts teaching performance as well. Human welfare and education are not mutually exclusive; they’re intertwined.
It’s really interesting to me that everyone zeroes in on Medicaid expansion. Teachers see a lot of impoverished kids every day, kids who are dealing with crazy shit at home, kids who are coming to school without the care they need to thrive.
Medicaid expansion, as I understand it, doesn’t directly impact children (it only impacts folks ages 19-64). But I could be wrong about that–I’m reading different things.
In any case, it indirectly impacts them by giving medical coverage to their parents. This means fewer families bankrupted by medical bills, and healthier parents–both of which will result in better home lives for kids.
And NC is one of only 14 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid. Our tax dollars pay for the expansion, but we don’t receive the benefits.
We’re getting called “radicals” and “communists” by the right. I think our demands can be summed up by a radical communist chant:
Hey, hey,
Ho, ho,
Make North Carolina Public Education conditions
Just slightly less low!
As with all the demands, it’s asking for our state to come a little closer to the national average. Hardly radical.
Heh. Our new logo (currently visible at that link) is a black heart around a red, raised fist, superimposed with the words “Strong Students, Strong Schools, Strong Communities.” Our local rightwing think tanks are calling us Stalinists because Stalin also used a red raised fist as a symbol for the Soviet Union.
May 1 is a day resonant in the history of the international workers’ movement. It commemorates the 1886 Haymarket demonstration of Chicago in which several workers ultimately gave their lives for the cause of the 8-hour workday.
Yup–I love having us be out on May Day for that reason. Others are calling it “May Day, May Day,” and others have talked about “5/1: Five Issues, One Day.”
I can’t wait until our rightwingers start atwittering about the days’ communistic associations.
On the Medicaid expansion issue, here’s a review of the data, conducted by the Center for Children and Families at the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute:
When we first started talking about demands, we had over a dozen, which we narrowed down through discussion and voting. We had several demands that fell into the “no direct benefit to teachers, but direct benefit to our students, which indirectly benefits us because holy shit it’s stressful seeing the effects of poverty on students every day.” This is the one that we voted to include as having the most significant direct benefit for students.
The increase in counselors etc. was voted on for a similar reason. I’ve got stories that would curl your hair, as does I suspect every NC teacher, but student privacy concerns really limit my telling of these stories. Suffice it to say there are kids living in crisis every day, having undergone unbelievable trauma, who are not getting the help they need, because we’re so shortstaffed.
Yes. In fact, in every other state government position in NC, $15 is the minimum hourly wage: custodians and groundskeepers in museums, legislative buildings, DOT facilities, and everywhere else earn $15 an hour, due to a law that was passed a couple of years ago. But schools were specifically excluded from that law. We want the situation rectified.
That said, I was talking with one of our instructional assistants who’s been working in the system for 26 years, and who earns less than $15 an hour. Apparently IAs don’t get regular raises either for experience or cost of living adjustments: whatever scale you’re hired at is what you stay at. She’s been there longer than anyone else in the building, she’s amazing, she’s a certified trainer of trainers in the discipline program our district uses (the community resilience model), and she earns less than this year’s newly hired IAs, because she was hired at a lower rate.
When she complained to the district, she was told that if she resigned and stayed out of the field for six months, then she could reapply as a new hire; and if she were hired (not necessarily at the school she’s loved for the last quarter century), she’d earn far more than she’s earning now.
But she can’t. She has health issues, and she still lives with her parents, not being able to afford living on her own in this town.
I interviewed her about her situation. I had to stop several times, jaw agape, because I thought I’d misunderstood something she’d told me, surely the system couldn’t be that insane. If you’re having the same reaction to what you’re reading, you’re not misunderstanding. It’s seriously that foolish.