For years now our governors, Mike Easley (D) for the last several, Jim Hunt(D)before him, and now Bev Purdue (D) Have called NC an "Education State" - note since 1900 NC has had all Democrat governors except for 12 years - though we consistently fall near the bottom of any national ranking in education.

Taken from Purdue's website

...The budget utilizes $2.9 billion of federal recovery monies to support education and other mission-critical services over the biennium.
That is why my budget recommendations focus on:

• Growing North Carolina’s Economy
• Improving Public Education
• Keeping Higher Education Accessible and Affordable
• Making Government More Efficient and Accountable ...
Today I signed my first piece of legislation -- a bill that lays the foundation for a major restructuring of our state education leadership. Senate Bill 198 paves the way for Dr. Bill Harrison to serve as both CEO of our state’s public schools and Chair of the State Board.
This new leadership structure...

here I need to say, we already have an elected State Superintendent of schools, this "new position" is nothing more than an additional layer (read unnecessary money spent) of an appointment by the governor (read she is trying to do an end run around the voters' choice of state superintendent -a D as well, btw- to put in her own crony) - Fire his ass now! I'm betting his new pay package alone would fund at least 3 of the teacher jobs being cut, probably more. Not to mention all the money it takes to fund his staff, office, and all the extra bureaucracy this new office includes, more administration - as usual - fewer soldiers in the trenches.

In March teachers in NC learned that they were taking an across the board retroactive to the first of the year pay cut. All the retroactive cut to be taken from their pay at once in May. Also the bonus long term (10 yrs plus) teachers have gotten for years now is being suspended for the next three years. They were told these cuts were to prevent teacher layoffs. Now we are seeing state wide teacher layoffs anyway. In my county alone, out of 1,900 teaching positions 110 are being cut, 80 receiving pink slips on June 1. All this in addition to learning in Jan that their insurance premiums were going up and their deductibles being raised. Nice. Education state are we?

We in NC fund 500 new teaching fellows per year ($6,500 per year for four years) meaning at any given time tax payers are funding 2,000 college students. These kids agree to teach in NC for four years, or refund their scholarships at 10% interest. So now that we are laying off established teachers- with families and mortgages, what are we going to do with the 500 newly graduated teaching fellows? Are we going to lay off these established teachers so that the new teachers can work - as we promised them? Or are we saddling newly minted teachers with a 10% student loan to pay off, and no job?

from Bev Purdue's campaign site (she was just elected)
We all know and agree that it’s the Democratic Party that represents the values of North Carolina. We’re the party that stands up for our working families. We’re the party that’ll improve public education - Don't you just love this? "We all know and agree?" - excuse me lady, but "we" by no means all know or agree on this, and you are the party that stands up for working families? auto industry workers anyone? but I digress on that -"we are the party that will improve public education" by eliminating teaching positions? increasing class size? come again!?!?

For a more detailed listing of cuts in NC's education budget, from Transparent Learning I learned this - and she got it from Public School Forum of NC

• Shorten the school year by 5 days in FY 2009-10 and 5 more days (total of 10) in FY 2010-11. (This is ok by me)
• Increase class size teacher allotment by 2 per grade (-6,005 Classroom Teachers) (not so ok, this is a smoke screen of sorts, yes in elementary school it might average out to 2 per class, not neccessarily bad, but this is an average - means some will be 3,4,5 more per class and once you get beyond elementary you have teachers who teach specific subjects so eleminating say a math teacher from a department increases class size by much more than 2. But saying 2 per class makes it all sound so reasonable...)
• Eliminate Teacher Assistants in grade 3 (-4,663 Teacher Assistants) (3rd graders shouldn't need teacher's assistants, but I hate seeing these people loose their jobs as well, these are low paying jobs and for the most part the state gets more than their money's worth from aides)
• Reduce Low Wealth Supplemental Funding – Fund counties @ 90% and below. This adjustment
would eliminate funding 13 LEAs (Craven, Cumberland, Davie, Gaston, Lincoln, Madison,
Mitchell, Onslow, Pender, Perquimans, Union, Warren, Yancey). - not sure how this will affect these counties, but it sure doesn't show a commitment to education for everyone now does it?
• Reduce Instructional Support (- 354 counselors, media, social workers)- again, commitment to education?
• Reduction to School Building Administration (-187 Assistant Principals)- probably to some extent more administration than is needed, but I bet these folks thought they had secure jobs. These are generally former teachers, their education and experiance is teaching, if we are cutting teaching jobs what are these people supposed to do for jobs now?
• 5% reduction to Non-instructional Support (clerical and custodians)- ok, but again I thought this state was committed to saving jobs for low income workers?
• Small County Supplemental Funding – a reduction of $4.5 million
• A 10% reduction to More @ 4 (After school program - and fine with me, schools shouldn't be tax funded babysitting services)
• Elimination of Learn and Earn On-Line (this is not so good, for some students in this state the on-line program is their only access to AP courses not offered at their own school, education commitment?)
• Elimination of application fee payment for National Board (ok, they can pay this themselves)
• Elimination of Literacy Coaches (I thought those were teachers?)
• Central Office (-5.38% or a reduction of $6.5 million)- GOOD! This is where cuts SHOULD happen!
• DPI – an 11% reduction in FY 2009-10 and an additional 4% (total of 15%) reduction in FY (2010-11. This would eliminate 52 positions in FY 2009-10 and 19 more (71 total) in FY 2010-11. (again GOOD! this is excess bureaucracy!)

This state began an "education lottery" in 2005 that was supposed to increase the funds for our public schools (this lottery was passed only due to a dirty underhanded trick aided by then Lt. Gov. Beverly Purdue). But from the beginning the lottery fund has been raided for other purposes by our Democrat led state government regularly, most recently by $50 million in late April. So now our schools don't have the money they need, lottery money that was supposed to be 100% for education.

Education state my ass....