Altered State: How 5 years of conservative rule have redefined North Carolina

8/20/2019 Altered State: How 5 years of conservative rule have redefined North Carolina

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ALTERED STATE

HOW 5 YEARS OF CONSERVATIVE RULEHAVE REDEFINED NORTH CAROLINA

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CPOLICYWATCH


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NC POLICY WATCH

A SPECIAL PROJECT FROM

http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/alteredstate

Photo by Ricky Le


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EDITOR — ROB WATERS | PHOTOGRAPHY/ART/PRODUCTION — CLAYTON HENKEL, RICKY LEUNG, PHYLLIS NUNN | EDITORIAL CARTOONS — JOHN COLE

— ALTERED STATE — How five years of conservative rule have rede fined North Carolina

Losing its luster

The teaching profession is battered from all sides

Paving the way to privatization

Lawmakers embrace vouchers and charters — but notaccountability

I

CHRIS FITZSIMON The wrecking crew

Government shrinks, safety net is shredded and bene fits fl owto the wealthy

Executive Director, N.C. Policy Watch

S T

ALEXANDRA FORTER SIROTA Public investment alls, tax responsibility shifs

Low- and middle-income taxpayers bear more of the burdenDirector, N.C. Budget & Tax Center

S N

SARAH OVASKA-FEW Yanking away the ladder

The legislature cuts programs that help people climb out of poverty

Investigative Reporter

D

SHARON MCCLOSKEY Paradise or polluters

A pro-business agenda trumps environmental concernsCourts, Law & Democracy Reporter

E

LINDSAY WAGNER Starving the schools

Teacher assistants, textbooks and services are slashed Education Reporter

SARAH OVASKA-FEW UNC system at risk

As the budget axe cuts deep, political meddling is feared Investigative Reporter

J

SHARON MCCLOSKEY Win the courts, win the war

How the state Supreme Court advances the Right’s agendaCourts, Law & Democracy Reporter

I R

SHARON MCCLOSKEY Open season

Conservatives pursue voting restrictions, keep fighting on

old social issues

Courts, Law & Democracy Reporter

L A

ROB SCHOFIELD Amid gloom, rays o hope

The Right’s harsh policies are unpopular, and rifts areemerging

Research Director, N.C. Policy Watch

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December 2015


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2 N.C. Policy Watch | Altered State: How fi ve years of conservative rule have redefined North Carolina

I

n October 2011, just a few months after the end ofthe first General Assembly session controlled by

Republicans in more than a hundred years, HouseSpeaker Thom Tillis told a small group of GOP faithfulin Mars Hill that one of his goals was to “divide andconquer” people on public assistance.

Tillis, now a U.S. senator, explained that he wantedto get people with disabilities to “look down” at otherson public assistance, low-income families whom hedeemed unworthy of public support.

It was a revealing moment for the new Republicanmajority in Raleigh, laying bare one of their goals, tounravel the social safety net in pursuit of their aim toshrink the government they disdain and slash taxes oncorporations and the wealthy.

It is part of an agenda they have pursued withoutpause in the last fi ve years, and the damage to NorthCarolina has been remarkable and stunning to behold.

Republicans took over control of the General Assembly in the 2010 election in what amounted to aperfect political storm — the national backlash in themidterm election of the first term of the first African-

American president, the concurrent and well-fundedrise of the Tea Party, and the collapse of the NorthCarolina Democratic Party.

The investments of tens of millions of dollars instate-level propaganda outfits in the last 20 years byconservative financiers like Raleigh businessman ArtPope played a key role as well.

It was a moment they had been planning for, and itcouldn’t have come at a more opportune time — just

before the General Assembly would redraw the linesfor legislative and congressional districts that woulddefine state elections for the next 10 years.

Once they took over the state House and Senate,

the new legislative leaders moved to consolidate andpreserve their power, with gerrymandered electoral

maps and new voting laws aimed at making it tougherfor people who don’t generally support Republicansto vote.

They took over state government completely in2012 with the election of former Charlotte Mayor PatMcCrory as governor. McCrory had lost to DemocratBev Perdue in 2008, but the stars were again aligned for

Republicans four years later when Perdue announcedshortly before the campaign started that she would notseek reelection. That left Democrats scrambling to finda candidate before settling on Lieutenant Governor

Walter Dalton, whom McCrory handily defeated.Republicans also understood that their gerrymandered

districts and many of their most radical attempts to remakethe state would face legal challenges. Gathering millionsin donations from allied outside political groups, theymaintained a majority on the N.C. Supreme Court, wheremany of the challenges to their agenda would land.

With all three branches of government securely under

their control, the ideological shift left few areas of statepolicy untouched. People who were already strugglinghave been hurt the most — low-wage workers, singlemothers, people of color and immigrants. Vital lifesupports, such as child care subsidies, pre-K programs,unemployment insurance and food stamps, have beenslashed.

And there’s been more than a loss of basic benefits.People living on the margins have been demonizedin the last fi ve years too, blamed for their struggles,penalized for their inability to find jobs that don’t exist,and cruelly stereotyped for political gain. The folks nowin charge of Raleigh haven’t just made governmentsmaller, they have also made it meaner.

The wrecking crew Government shrinks, the safety net is shreddedand benefi ts flow to the wealthy

By Chris Fitzsimon Executive Director, N.C. Policy Watch

228 — weekly average in dollars of unemployment benefi t in North Carolina*See page 43 for data sources.BY THE NUMBERS*:

I


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3The wrecking crew

Most of the money they saved from slashing safetynet programs hasn’t been reinvested in education or job training or infrastructure. Instead, even as taxrevenue has risen as the state recovers from the GreatRecession, the savings have been given to corporationsand the wealthy in a series of massive tax breaks.

Thanks to the anemic budgets of the last fi ve years,North Carolina now spends almost 6 percent less on

state services than in 2008 in infl

ation-adjusted dollars.Now the folks in charge are pushing to lock in the woeful recession-era level of public investment byadding arbitrary spending limits to the state constitution

in the misnamed Taxpayer Bill of Rights. In Colorado,the only state that has adopted it, it has been a disaster.

Nowhere have the cuts hit harder than in publicschools, where rankings in teacher pay and per pupilfunding have spiraled toward the bottom of the 50states.

Once recognized across the

country for its commitmentto public education, North

Carolina now is makingheadlines for how much ofit is being dismantled, withteachers fleeing to otherstates because of low salariesand the culture of animosityand disrespect from stateleaders.

The meanness is evident heretoo. The nationally recognized

Teaching Fellows program has been abolished, even as thestate struggles to recruit bright

students into the profession,merely because of its ties toprominent Democrats likeformer Gov. Jim Hunt.

Low-income kids and their families are the biggestlosers in the attacks on public schools, but there are winners in the ideological assault: new for-profitcompanies that run charter schools, private andreligious academies that now receive taxpayer fundingand sketchy online institutions that are raking in statedollars.

The new ruling class in Raleigh, while professinga commitment to reduce the scope of government,increased its role in people’s personal lives andhealth care decisions, interfered with local issues incommunities across the state, and pushed to resumeexecutions even as two men were freed from prison,one from death row, after serving for more than 30

years for a murder they did not commit.They made it harder for some people to vote but easier

for many people to get a gun and take it into more places

— bars, restaurants, parks and playgrounds. They havesystematically rolled back important environmentalprotections, undeterred by the massive coal ash spillinto the Dan River in 2014, the worst environmentaldisaster in the state’s history.

The radical transformation of North Carolinahas prompted a passionate response in protest, as

thousands have marched in Raleigh and across thestate in the NAACP-led Moral Monday movement.Most of the state’s papers have editorialized against

virtually every piece of the right-wing agenda, and thenational media have weighed in too, most famously The

New York Times in a 2013 editorial “The Decline ofNorth Carolina,” that lamented the “grotesque damagethat a new Republican majority has been doing to atradition of caring for the least fortunate.”

The protests and bitingcriticism have galvanizedopponents of the newdirection, but the ideological

crusaders running things inRaleigh seem undaunted. Inlate October, Gov. McCrorysigned bills that rolled backanother group of important

environmental protections,cut off food stamps for100,000 families, andmade life more dif ficult forimmigrants in the state.

This report, “Altered State:Howfi ve years of conservative

rule have redefined North

Carolina,” is a look at whathas happened since politicalcontrol changed in the 2010election.

It is impossible to catalogue, much less describein detail, all the changes; that would take hundredsof pages. Instead, this report is about themes andtrends as well the consequences of those policychanges for families and for the vital institutions thatfor a generation made a North Carolina a relativelyprogressive Southern state, a leader in education,environmental protections and quality of life.

Five years after taking control of North Carolina’sgovernment, the regime in Raleigh is still dividingand conquering, leaving North Carolina an alteredstate indeed. ■

— [email protected]

47 — rank of North Carolina’s unemployment benefi t among the 50 states


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0%

1%

2%

3%

4%

5%

6%

7%

8%

45-year average = 6.1%(since 1971)

2001 2004 2007 2010 2013 2016

2015–17 budget

5.0% in FY17

5.2% in FY16

State spending as part of the economy continues to shrink,

remains below 45-year average

Public investment

By Alexandra Forter Sirota Director, N.C. Budget & Tax Center

Public investments are essential building blocksof long-term economic growth and sharedprosperity. Decades ago, North Carolina diverged

from its Southern neighbors by investing in goodroads, quality public schools and universities and earlychildhood programs.

Since the of ficial recovery began in 2009 — whenrebuilding from the Great Recession would have been

possible — state lawmakers have turned away from thattradition, choosing to sharply limit public spending infavor of tax cuts. Overall, state support for services inthe 2016fiscal year will be nearly a full percentage point

below historic investment levels asa share of the economy.

In fact, state spending as a shareof the economy — measured by state

personal income — has fallen every year since 2009. The new budgetcontinues this trend, and caps offthe only period in more than fourdecades in which state spending

declined as a part of the economyfor more than fi ve straight years.

The tax code has been radicallytransformed since 2010 in a waythat makes adequate funding 0fcore public services more dif ficult.

The most recent chapter instate fiscal history began in 2009 with the worst revenue shortfallssince the Great Depression. Statepolicymakers responded withtargeted spending cuts, deferredcapital projects and measures to

bolster state revenues. A temporarytax package passed in 2009combined a sales tax increase with a

surcharge on high-income taxpayers

and profitable corporations to raise$1.3 billion. It expired in 2011.

The of ficial recovery began in

f a l l s ,shifstax responsibility

“State spending as part of the economy — measured by state personal

income — has consistently fallen in the past few years.”

— “A Summary of the Fiscal Year 2015–2017 Budget,” BTC Reports, October 2014

Source: N.C. Budget & Tax Center

— percentage decline of investment in state services from 2008 to 2016

when adjusted for inflation5.9

Low- and middle-income taxpayers bear more of the load

July 2009, but job losses in the state continued for 14more months. Despite still-sluggish job creation andrevenue projections, policymakers, having allowedthe temporary tax package to expire, made $1.7 billionin additional budget cuts in 2011. At the same time,the legislature passed a tax exemption for business“pass-through” income at a cost of more than $300million per year.

In 2012, the legislature increased taxes on many working families by reducing the value of the stateEarned Income Tax Credit (EITC). At the same time,lawmakers constrained the ability of the Department


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Public investments alls, tax responsibility shifs 5

Tax cut winners: the 1 percent Average total tax change in North Carolina since 2013

$30

-$6

-$14,977

-$18,000

-$14,000

-$10,000

-$6,000

-$2,000

$2,000

Lowest 20%

$12,000

Middle 20%

$44,000

Top 1%

$1,061,000 Avg. income:

communities; decreases in Medicaid provider rates;and reduced staf fing for monitoring and testing thestate’s environmental quality.

Policymakers made fewer changes to state-leveltaxes in the 2014 legislative session, but they enactedrestrictions on the ability of local governments tocompensate for the loss of state funding support caused

by previous tax cuts. Most significant was a new law

barring local governments from collecting privilegelicense taxes from businesses.In 2015, policymakers once again cut taxes on

profitable multistate corporations, reduced the personal

income tax rate and expanded the sales tax to moreservices. On top of increasing the share of total statetaxes paid by low- and middle-income families, thispackage of changes will reduce available revenue bymore than $1 billion annually within four years. ■


of Revenue to prevent multi-state corporations fromshifting profits to other states to avoid paying taxes onprofits earned in North Carolina.

In 2013, as the state’s economic recovery wasfinallytaking hold, lawmakers enacted a major overhaul ofthe tax code that further reduced revenues. Theyscrapped North Carolina’s progressive income taxand replaced it with a flat rate, phased in tax cuts

for profi

table corporations, extended the sales taxto several services and eliminated many credits anddeductions — including the state EITC — reducingavailable revenue by roughly $1 billion per year. In aseparate bill they also eliminated the estate tax that

would have been levied on the value of estates worthmore than $5 million. The combined effect was toshift the tax load further onto working- and middle-class taxpayers while giving millionaires a significanttax cut. Reductions on the public investments sideincluded: fewer slots in pre-K programs; eliminationof funding for small business lending in underserved

7 — consecutive years in which state spending measured as a percentage of state personalincome has fallen with the passage of the 2015–17 budget

Changes in personal income and sales taxes since 2013 have reshaped

the state’s tax code in a way that shifts the tax responsibility to low-income

and middle-income taxpayers. Note: Chart illustrates the combined impact of

2013 and 2015 tax changes (personal income tax and sales tax changes, fully

phased-in). Baseline for comparison is pre-2013 tax code with state EarnedIncome Tax Credit (EITC) in baseline.

Sources: Data request to Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP),

October 2015; N.C. Budget & Tax Center


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6

Yanking away the ladderLegislature blocks and cuts programs that help people climb out of poverty

By Sarah Ovaska-Few Investigative Reporter

David Turner’s spine and back issues cause himnearly constant pain and distress, keeping himinside his house most days and unable to meet

with clients for his web design business or care for histwo children.

A medical test would clear Turner for steroid shotsto lessen the pain, but the $5,000 price tag is too steep

for the Gaston County family with an annual incomeof less than $20,000 and no health insurance.

The Turners are stuck in what’s known as theMedicaid expansion gap, a hole created when NorthCarolina’s legislature rejected federal money that would

have expanded the program to cover a half-million ofthe state’s lowest-income adults.

The Turners essentially make too little to qualify forfederal subsidies that would make health insurance onthe open market affordable and aren’t sick enough toget health care through the existing Medicaid program,

which primarily serves low-income children, elderlyand disabled persons. (Their children are enrolled inMedicaid.)

“We’re hanging on by a thread,” said Karen Turner, who has diabetes but delayed treatment so the familycan afford her husband’s pain medications.

If David Turner had access to medical care, there’sa good likelihood that he would be able to work more,earn more, pay more taxes and better support his

family. North Carolina is one of 20 states that has notexpanded its Medicaid program to cover poor adults,even though the federal government would cover mostof the costs. North Carolina accounts for 10 percent ofall the nation’s adults that fall into the Medicaid gap,according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

A central element in the five-year reign of

conservatives has been a fundamental change in howstate government views and treats its poorest andmost vulnerable citizens. The 2013 decision to rejectMedicaid expansion is part of a broad effort to cut, limitor eliminate programs that provide ladders to help poor

families climb out of poverty and find better futures.There’s not a single program that can eradicate

poverty, making it all the more important to maintainstrong public education systems, adequate housing,access to child care and health care as well as strongsafety nets to provide food and shelter in emergencysituations, said Elizabeth Lower-Basch of the Centerfor Law and Social Policy, a national advocacy groupfor low-income people.

“There’s not one magic bullet,” Lower-Basch said.“It’s everything working together.”

In North Carolina, more than 17 percent of residentslive in households with annual incomes below the federalpoverty line, roughly $24,000 for a family of four. Many

of those at the bottom are children; census data released

17.2 — percentage of North Carolinians living in poverty


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Yanking away the ladder 7

in October showed that nearly onein four North Carolina childrenlive in impoverished households.Nearly 40 percent of black andLatino children live in householdsclassified as impoverished.

In the Gaston County community

of Bessemer City, the Turners are

waiting for Karen’s anticipated2017 graduation with a communitycollege degree in medical of ficeadministration. The hope is thatshe can find a job that providesinsurance for the family.

Meanwhile, they’ve looked intotemporarily moving to a state thathas expanded Medicaid or travelingto Mexico to get spinal surgery forDavid, but they have concluded thatneither option is feasible.

“We’re stuck,” David Turner said.

After a medical scare KarenTurner had this fall, the coupleopted to divert their limited fundsfrom paying for David’s medicinesand instead begin treating his wife’sdiabetes.

Advocates of limited governmentcontend that the policy changesand spending cuts enacted bythe legislature are long-overduemeasures to reduce the size of stategovernment, cut taxes to individualsand businesses and stimulate the

economy.“It puts us on a stage and lets

them know that North Carolinahas made more progress thanany other state in the last three

years on economic policy,” formerRepublican N.C. House Speaker and

current U.S. Senator Thom Tillistold Governing magazine in 2014.“I’m proud of that.”

Others disagree. Critics saydecisions like the refusal toexpand Medicaid are cruel and

unnecessary, especially with thestate’s slow recovery from thenational recession.

“What we’ve seen is a legislaturethat has ignored the moral andconstitutional values that we do what is the best for the whole,”said the Rev. William Barber II, the

head of the state’s NAACP branch.“They’ve only done what’s best forthe wealthy.”

Barber, a pastor of a Goldsborochurch who has led the civil rightsorganization for the last decade, isone of the most outspoken critics ofdecisions by the legislature. He is theleader of the Moral Monday protests

that gained national attention in2013 with weekly displays of civildisobedience.

When the Democrats were in

power, they too did not do enoughto help the poorest citizens, Barbersaid. And those in power now, hesaid, show little regard for thestruggles that working and low-income people face.

Gene Nichol, a UNC law professorstudying the effects of poverty, is

blunter.“Democrats for a long time in

North Carolina have ignored poorpeople,” Nichol said. “Now, inthe last fi ve years, we’ve learned

that there’s one thing worse than

ignoring poor people. That’s waging

war on poor people.”

Painful Recession

North Carolina was once seen asa state that managed to dodge the worst of the South’s widespreadpoverty, in large part because of a

commitment from state leaders to building a strong public educationand infrastructure system.

But the state was hit hard by theGreat Recession. In 2008, morethan 16 percent of the populationlived in poverty in 47 of the state’s100 counties, according to U.S.Census figures. By 2013, that wasthe case in 79 counties.

The spending cuts – in publiceducation, health and humanservices – are especially deep,

because they come on top ofreductions forced by the recession.The earlier cuts, enacted byDemocrats then in control of thelegislature and the governor’sof fice, came in response to theplunge in tax revenue from business

and income taxes caused by theeconomic collapse.

But the decisions made afterthe 2010 shift in power amplifiedand deepened many of thosecuts. An accompanying overhaul

of the tax structure broadened

Constant distress

Karen Turner recounts medical and

other expenses the couple incurs

while her husband David shifts to

find a comfortable position to sit.

Photo by Ricky Leung

24.3 — percentage of North Carolina’s children living in poverty


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the sales and other taxes that theN.C. Budget & Tax Center says aredisproportionately paid by low-and middle-income residents andflattened an income tax structurelargely to the benefit of businessesand wealthier residents.

The decisions range from those

that affect many — such as the500,000 residents not eligible forMedicaid — to smaller programs,like the elimination of dozens ofstate dental hygienists who visitedschools to check on the teeth ofchildren.

In 2006, the state Oral HealthDepartment in the N.C. Department

of Health and Human Services had84 people on its staff. Less than a

decade later, that number is downto 36. Many of those let go weredental hygienists who providedexaminations at elementaryschools throughout the state andthen helped coordinate care forchildren whose families couldn’tafford regular dental care. The cuts

leave 35 counties without the dentalservices.“It just doesn’t make any sense

to me,” said Mary Oates, whocoordinates the school nurses inLee County Schools, one of the areascut off from the program. “We’renot talking about a huge amountof money, but the benefits acrossthe state were tremendous for ourchildren.”

Tom Vitaglione, a senior fellow with the child advocacy groupN.C. Child, said the state had

been making progress in reducinginfant mortality, building up earlyeducation programs and increasinghigh school graduation rates.

“The problem right now is that

we’re regressing,” said Vitaglione, who has been working on childpoverty issues for more than 30

years. “All those advances are not being built upon and are eroding.”

In fact, the N.C. Departmentof Health and Human Servicesannounced in October that theinfant mortality rate rose slightlyto 7.1 deaths for every 1,000 births, well above the national rate of6.0. For black children, the infantmortality rates are more than twice

that of white babies.Many other programs affecting

the poor have been scaled back oreliminated over the last fi ve years.

North Carolina was the onlystate in the nation to get rid of itsEarned Income Tax Credit, affecting

nearly one million poor, workinghouseholds that used to receive anaverage $119 tax refund.

The state’s lauded pre-K program

for low-income children will serve6,476 fewer children in 2016 than

it did in 2009. Advocates for the elderly say a

failure to increase spending fornutrition and health care programshas left many of the state’s seniorresidents in compromising andpotentially dangerous situations.

“Statewide, we are seeing fewerresources than we were 10 yearsago,” said Dennis Streets, whoheads Chatham County’s Councilon Aging and formerly served as the

head of the state’s aging and elderlyservices. “We are losing ground.”

The programs that keep elderlypeople healthy and independent –allowing for visits from home aides,meal delivery or daily communitymeals at senior centers – can be thefirst to go when spending gets tight.

In 2008, 47 counties in North Carolina had more than 16 percent of their

population living under the poverty line. In 2013, that grew to 79 counties.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013 Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates;

2008 Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates

2013

2008

3% - 11.6%

>11.6% - 16%

> 16% - 20.4%

> 20.4% - 25.8%

> 25.8% - 34.1%

Percentage population in poverty by county

6,227 — number of children who lost access to child care subsidies as a result of new eligibility

restrictions adopted by the General Assembly in 2014


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Yanking away the ladder 9

Some of the spending decisions were forced by the recession. Asthe economy has begun to recoverand tax revenue has risen, however,legislative leaders have maintaineda tight lid on spending.

A $400 million surplus in thelast budget year was not used to

significantly shore up the publicschools or restore cuts to many ofthe programs affecting the elderly,indigent and poor children aroundthe state. Instead, some money was placed in a rainy day fundand another round of tax cuts wasprovided for businesses.

Unemployment benefits

slashed

The unemployed have beensubjected to especially severetreatment. North Carolina cut its

benefits to the lowest levels in thenation, from a maximum of $535a week to $350. The reductionrendered more than 170,000long-term unemployed residents

ineligible for additional federal benefits in the second half of 2013.North Carolina was the only stateto reject this federal money, evenas its unemployment rate toppedthe national average.

The lowered benefits have pushedsome people into a downward spiral

difficult to shake off. Ramona Aragon of Durham lost her job as an

administrative assistant in March.It was the first time she’d ever

been laid off, and she immediatelyapplied for unemployment benefits

while she looked for new work.But 15 weeks went by without

her application being processed,and, with her savings depleted, shehad to sell her belongings and move

back into her parents’ home withher two children, 13 and 7.

“I had to give away all myfurniture, everything I owned,and move back in with my parents because I couldn’t find work,” Aragon said. “I’m 39, I neverthought I’d be where I am now.”

Even if the unemployment

benefits had come through whenthey were supposed to, Aragon saidit’s unlikely it would have saved her.

She had been making $600 a week,and the unemployment help was afraction of that.

“I truly don’t know anybody whocould live off of $240 a week,” she

said.The father of her children is notin the picture and owes her morethan $35,000 in child support. Fora while, she took a job as a waitress,

but had to quit when she was unableto arrange child care. Unpaid billshave destroyed her credit record,and she now thinks her poor creditscores have kept her from getting jobs at several financial servicesfirms.

Aragon, who had been working

toward a nursing degree beforeshe was laid off, is now enrolledin a training program at DurhamTechnical Community Collegeto prepare her for work in thepharmaceutical industry. She hopes

that once she finishes the programlater this year, a job will materializeand she can earn enough to moveher and her children out of herparents’ house and start rebuildingtheir life.

“It’s been hard on all of us,”

Aragon said.

30,000 fewer getting help

through day care subsidies

Child care subsidies, designedto make it possible for low-incomeparents to go to work, havealso come under the knife. Thelegislature narrowed the incomeeligibility for families that could gethelp, and about 6,000 children losttheir places in day care as a result,said Michele Rivest, the executivedirector for North Carolina’s ChildCare Coalition.

The income-eligibility changescame in the midst of generaldrops in funding and changes inreimbursement rates that led the

Working to get work

Having lost her job in March and sold her belongings to live in her parents’ home

with her two children, Ramona Aragon is now enrolled in a subsidized trainingprogram at Durham Technical Community College. Aragon spends her evenings

reviewing her own school work while helping her children with their homework.


768 — average monthly cost, in dollars, of child care in North Carolina


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state to provide child care help for30,250 fewer children in 2014 thanit did in 2010.

“I have no understanding of why that happened,” Rivest said,other than a “general thing aboutdecreasing the size of government.” What happened to the affected

families is unclear, she said, because no effort is made to trackthe results of the policy changes.Those working in the field say theusual alternatives are that parentshave to quit their jobs, children arecared for by neighbors or familymembers, or the children are left tofend for themselves in empty homes

after school.Donna Pyles owns a Fayetteville

area child care center wheremultiple families withdrew their

children after income eligibility wasincreased. She too worries about what becomes of those families,many of them headed by singlemothers, and whether their childrenare in safe settings or getting thedevelopmental help they need.

“You’re actually hurting the whole

community,” Pyles said about thechild care subsidy changes. “Thisparent is not going to be able to

work or continue to go to school.”Changes to the child care subsidy

program had an immediate anddisastrous result for Calla Caristo,a single mother of three earning$16.50 an hour as a receptionist atan Asheville real estate firm.

Late this summer, Caristo learnedthat her two elementary school-aged

children would no longer qualifyfor after-school assistance, and theco-pay for her 3-year-old’s childcare would go up by $100 a month,enough to put it out of reach.

Caristo had to quit her job to carefor her children. She had been living

with her brother and his family, but tensions rose in the house ashe faced foreclosure and financialissues of his own, and she movedout in September.

“My children and I are pretty

much living in my car,” Caristosaid, “all because some politiciansdecided that my family didn’tcount.”

She doesn’t know where she’llend up and said she takes each dayas it comes to find money for mealsthat often end up being peanut butter sandwiches. The familyspends some nights at a friend’shouse and many others parked atcity parks. She tells her childrenthey can see the stars through thecar’s sunroof, something most kidsdon’t get to do.

Caristo wishes someone hadstopped and thought about familieslike hers before putting the changesin place.

“There are these people that are

falling and why? For what? Can weget to the very bottom?” Caristosaid. “The person that makes thatfinal decision needed to go and see

what is going to happen.”■


Amid declining expenditures for child care subsidies over the past few years,

changes in policies regarding eligibility have also caused many families to

withdraw from day cares.

Sources: N.C. Division of Child Development and Early Education;

N.C. Child Care Coalition

151,363

136,564129,752

121,303 121,113

20,000

40,000

60,000

80,000

100,000

120,000

140,000

160,000

$0

$50

$100

$150

$200

$250

$300

$350

$400

$450

$500

FY 10 FY 11 FY 12 FY 13 FY 14

C h i l d r e n

s e r v e d

C h i l d c a r e f u n d s ( i n m i l l i o n s )

State fiscal year

Unduplicated number

of children served

Total state funds

Total federal funds Total subsidized child care

funds in DCDEE budget

Subsidized child care expenditures for direct services

by state fiscal year (inflation adjusted)

105,000 — number of low-income adults in North Carolina who will lose food aid in 2016

thanks to House Bill 318, the “Protect North Carolina Workers Act”


13/48

Paradise or polluters 11

Pro-business agenda trumps environmental concerns

By Sharon McCloskey Courts, Law & Democracy Reporter

C

onservatives rolled out the welcome mat for business when they tookcontrol of state government, making clear that unleashing companiesfrom regulatory burdens ranked at the top of their agenda.

“The reason I’m running for governor is to represent business,” thenCharlotte mayor and longtime Duke Energy employee Pat McCrory

told a group from the Council of Independent Business Owners during a 2012campaign stop in downtown Asheville. “I’ve been a business leader for 30 years.”

Nowhere has that pro-business strategy played out more visibly over the pastfi ve years than in the energy and environment sector, as lawmakers eager to

boost the economy pursued rushed and risky opportunities at the expense ofthe state’s natural resources.

In addition to rolling back regulations, they cut funding and stripped staff atthe Department of Environment and Natural Resources and passed the wordon to those who remained at the agency that, in the name of customer service,enforcement should take a back seat to the exploration and expansion of energyalternatives.

Then 39,000 tons of coal ash spilled into the Dan River in early February 2014,and the finger pointing started.

Paradise or

polluters

Murky waters

Coal ash pollutes the Dan River near Danville, Va., about 20 miles downstream from a spill that occurred at a closed North

Carolina coal-fired power plant owned by Duke Energy near Eden, N.C., in 2014.

Courtesy of Appalachian Voices; photo by Eric Chance

600,000 — amount in dollars the state environmental agency returned to the U.S. EPA that would

have been used for water testing in areas potentially affected by fracking


14/48


The spill, the third largeston record in the U.S., came aslittle surprise to environmentaladvocates, who had been pushingthe state for years to penalizeDuke Energy for groundwatercontamination stemming fromleaky coal ash pits and order the

utility to move the ash to lined pitsaway from water. Instead, as moststate residents learned after thespill, DENR and Duke Energy had

been negotiating a deal to settle violations at Duke’s Asheville andRiverbend plants for less than$100,000.

The coal ash spill could have beena wake-up call, a cautionary tale ofderegulation run amok.

In the aftermath, lawmakers

did step up funding for DENR —now known as the Departmentof Environmental Quality. Butthe push for deregulation and

rush toward speculative energyalternatives continues at the General

Assembly. And business favoritismpersists, evidenced most recently by

the state’s agreement to settle what was once a $25 millionfine on DukeEnergy for coal ash violations at two

plants, now reduced to $7 million

for violations at all 14 of its plantshere — and requiring ash removalat only a few of those plants.

An agency dismantled

When John Skvarla took thereins at DENR in January 2013,he brought with him years ofexperience in helping companiesmitigate environmental hazardsand avoid regulatory interference.

He also brought with him an

environmental protection view thatfrightened many in the conservation

sector. In a memo released soonafter his appointment, Skvarlaprofessed some doubt about thescience underlying claims of global

warming and other concerns andannounced an agency missionstatement along the same lines.“Environmental science is quitecomplex, comprised of manycomponents, and most importantly,contains diversity of opinion,” the

statement read.It was a page straight out of the

conservative playbook, promoted

TOP — Out, damned spot

Amy Adams, N.C. Campaign

Coordinator for Appalachian Voices,

shows some of the fine coal ash

deposited on a piece of driftwood

just upstream of the drinking water

intake in Danville, Va.

Courtesy of Appalachian Voices

Photo by Eric Chance

BOTTOM — All fed up

A demonstrator protests the ties

between Duke Energy and state

leaders in downtown Raleigh in

Februrary 2015.


33 — number of unlined coal ash pits that Duke Energy has at 14 sites throughout North Carolina


15/48

Paradise or polluters 13

aggressively by the fossil fuelindustry: Dismiss the scientificevidence — no matter howoverwhelming — as opinion andcontend that there’s a controversy.

Skvarla also made clear that,consistent with the McCroryadministration’s attention to

“customer service,” companieshe viewed as overburdened bygovernment regulation would finda sympathetic ear at his newlyreconstituted agency.

Everything DENR would do would involve some considerationof economics, Skvarla said in atalk given at the conservative JohnLocke Foundation in Raleigh.

Skvarla pushed out veteranenvironmental regulators andannounced a reorganization of

DENR, which had already had its budget slashed by the conservativemajority in 2011 and 2012, withstate funding cut nearly in half from

what it was before the recession.Staf fing cuts continued into 2013

— including at critical regionalof fices — and with fewer regulatorscame less enforcement.

“There’s a direct link betweenthe number of environmentalcops on the beat and the amount ofenforcement that happens,” Molly

Diggins, North Carolina director ofthe Sierra Club, told WRAL a fewmonths after the spill.

In the meantime, others at DENR

jumped ship, including Susan Wilson, a 24-year employee whoquit her job in September by way ofan email to Skvarla, with a video ofthe song “Take This Job and ShoveIt” attached.

In that email, Wilson explained why she was quitting:

“Between your inappropriatemission statement, the dismantlingof the Division of Water Quality,and HB74 (along with a few othergems from this session’s NCGA),I see no reason to continue here— because my own mission — toassist all citizens and protect those

that don’t have a voice, would becompromised.”

Skvarla moved on in late 2014,taking the reins at the Departmentof Commerce. In his place, thegovernor appointed Donald van der Vaart, who previously worked inthe agency’s air quality division for

years and was serving as McCrory’s“energy policy adviser” — a newposition focused on “increasingdomestic energy exploration,development and production inNorth Carolina as well as promoting

related economic growth and job

creation.”That’s a focus van der Vaart has

apparently carried over into his role

as head of the state’s newly-branded

agency.Just before his appointment,

critics called him out for authoring a

letter defending a closed meeting onoffshore drilling between state andfederal of ficials that also includedrepresentatives from the oilindustry, even though van der Vaart

said that neither industry of ficialsnor environmental advocates wereattending.

And in September 2015, van der Vaart also appeared as the guestspeaker at an event hosted by theJohn Locke Foundation, discussingthe state’s opposition to the Obama

administration’s Clean Power Plan.

Rejecting science

The elevation of businessinterests over the protection of thestate’s environment, combined withan abundant dose of climate change

denial, has posed a clear threat tothe state’s natural resources.

“Initially, there was a lot ofpent-up demand, a lot of angerfrom legislators coming in, a belief that government doesn’t work very well and that we need

to get rid of regulations, but not alot of discrimination about whichregulations we were getting rid of,”said Grady McCallie of the NorthCarolina Conservation Network.

For the environment, that meantthe rollback of clean water and airregulations, often with little debateor consideration of underlyingscience.

Carefully constructed reformmeasures, such as the rules to cleanup Jordan Lake — negotiated over adecade by interested parties ranging

from affected communities toenvironmental managers and set totake effect in 2013 — were scuttled

by the conservative majority.Instead, lawmakers poured more

than two million dollars into “solar

“Between your inappropriate mission statement,

the dismantling of the Division of Water Quality,

and HB74 [....], I see no reason to continue here

— because my own mission — to assist all citizens

and protect those that don’t have a voice, would

be compromised.”

— Former DENR employee Susan Wilsonin an email to John Skvarla, former secretary of DENR

100 — percentage of coal ash sites that are currently leachingcontaminants into surrounding soil and groundwater


16/48


bees,” water mixers that whenplaced in the lake would supposedly

reduce algae. Test results thus farare not promising.

Dismissing the climate changeresearch, lawmakers also rejectedmeasures to establish a statestandard for sea level rise, allowing

developers to continue to build onland that might just be underwater by the end of the century.

Energy alternatives like frackingand offshore drilling also got fast-tracked in the name of job creation— with fracking now a done deal,despite uncertainty over its long-term safety and without muchdiscussion about its worth, giventhe small amount of natural gasprojected to be in North Carolina.

Industry won big with that

deal, as the law criminalizes thedisclosure of chemical frackingfluids and reduces the radiusof contamination liability. Localcommunities, on the other hand,are now prohibited from issuingtheir own fracking bans and cannottax drilling activities.

The conservative majorityallowed renewable tax credits toexpire and persisted in their efforts

to repeal the state’s RenewableEnergy Portfolio Standard, whichcalls for 12.5 percent of the state’senergy to come from renewablesources by 2021, according to DanCrawford of the N.C. League ofConservation Voters.

“That standard made North

Carolina a hotbed of solar energy,”he said. “Some places rank us thirdor fourth, and during the GreatRecession, that industry was oneof the only growth sectors here.There’s been close to two billiondollars in investment in that herein the state.”

A coal ash cleanup bill passed, but it didn’t require much of acleanup — allowing Duke Energyto leave ash in unlined pits at 10 ofits 14 plants across the state. The

governor took a pass on this one,letting it become law without hissignature.

The conservative majority alsogave the green light to provisionsslipped into a rules reform bill —provisions dubbed the “PolluterProtection Act” by critics — that would give companies who self-report pollution incidents a passon enforcement and penalties.

Whistleblowers, on the otherhand, who learn of workplacepollution incidents they’d like toreport, didn’t fare as well.

The majority passed into law, overthe governor’s veto, the so-called ag-

gag bill, which allows companies tosue anyone — employees included

— who gains access to a company’snon-public area to obtain workplacesecrets or take pictures of workplace

violations. What remains, then, after fi ve

years of businessfirst, environmentlater governing in North Carolina?

“Lawmakers used to use science- based evidence; that gave us theClean Water Management programand the Clean Smokestacks Act,”Crawford said.

“We were heading in the right

direction, doing the right thingsto protect our air, water, wildlife,so that we could pass our stateon in a better condition to future

generations. Now that’s stopped.It’s the difference between nightand day.” ■


100,000 — acres of forests, farmland and open space lost to development every year in North Carolina


17/48

Starving the schools 15

Starving the schools

By Lindsay Wagner Education Reporter

Read and worn

Textbooks at Bunn Middle School in Franklin

County. Budget cuts have made new book

purchases impossible for the past several years.


Barbara Dell Carter is not a social worker. Nor isshe a nurse, psychotherapist, nutritionist or aspecial needs educator.

Carter is a second grade teacher. But in today’sclassrooms in North Carolina, she’s expected to takeon much more than planning lessons and teachingher students.

“And the needs of our students are just getting greater

and greater,” said Carter, who teaches at BeaufortCounty’s John Cotten Tayloe Elementary School inEastern North Carolina.

Carter says she and her colleagues must routinelyassist students who have profound needs – emotional,academic and medical – even though they generally lack

the training or resources to adequately address them. As for the training they have received on addressing

medical emergencies, Carter said, “We’ve watchedsome videos.”

Teacher assistants, textbooks, services slashed as per-pupil spending plummets

250 — decline, in dollars, in per-student K–12 funding in North Carolina for fiscal year 2015 from 2014

More than a teacher

Second grade teacher Barbara Dell Carter and her

colleagues must rely on fewer resources than ever to

respond to all of the emotional, medical and academic

needs of their students.



18/48


Teachers must be able to reactquickly to students experiencingcomplications associated withdiabetes and asthma because theschool shares one nurse with thetwo other elementary schools in thedistrict. The nurse is at Tayloe justtwo days a week.

When Carter began her teachingcareer nearly 20 years ago, there were more programs availableto identify students who neededfocused interventions and to givethem the one-on-one instructionthey needed.

“Those programs have goneaway,” said Carter, who says shesees bigger academic gaps thanever before — especially in termsof students’ abilities to readproficiently.

“At this point, my greatestconcern for the future is that withthe diversity of kids we’re dealing

with, how will we ever meet theirneeds with limited resources – andall by ourselves in the classroom?”said Carter.

fiscal 2011, total state funding forpublic schools was cut by about$1.04 billion when adjusted forinflation, according to the N.C.Budget & Tax Center.

Since then, the economy hasrecovered significantly, butstate spending on education has

not. And that is refl

ected in thedisappearance of teacher assistantsand in schools left scrambling forsupplies, textbooks and professionaldevelopment for their educators.

Overall spending on publiceducation is rising modestly yearto year, but not in a way that keepspace with growing enrollment. Forthe 2015–16 school year, nearly76,000 more students are attendingpublic schools than in 2008.

Philip Price, chieffinancial of ficer

for the state’s public schools, brokeit down this way in late 2014:

“If you back out the fundingadded for benefit-cost increasesand salary adjustments, the funding

available for classroom activities(textbooks, transportation, teacher

Uncertain future

Second graders Taylor Eatman (right) and Karyme

Mendoza read together during a “buddy reading” tim

Budget cuts have left teachers like Carter worried

about how they will meet their students’ needs with

limited resources.

Photos by Ricky Leung

For the fifth year in a row, Carteris fl ying solo in a classroom of 20-plus students, save for a handfulof hours a week. That’s becauselawmakers in Raleigh have beencutting funds for early-gradeteacher assistants for more than fi ve

years, along with many other line

items in the public schools budget.Today there are 7,000 fewer teacherassistants employed by the statethan there were in 2008.

Funding for education absorbed

a sharp cut when North Carolinaand other states scrambled to

balance budgets in response to the2008 recession. Between 2008and 2010, the economic collapseresulted in a drop of $1.2 billion instate tax revenue, forcing the then-Democratic leadership to cut nearly

every line item of the state budget.Public education, a sector that

accounts for about half of the state’s

spending plan (higher educationincluded) was not spared. Betweenfiscal 2008, the peak year ofspending for K–12 education, and

14.5 — percentage reduction in per-pupil spending in North Carolina

from 2007–08 to 2014–15 when adjusted for inflation

Make-your-own classroom

Many teachers like Patty Korman dig into their own

pockets to create resources for their classrooms.

Korman made a periodic table with her own money fo

her chemistry class at Bunn Middle School.


19/48


$4,600

$4,800

$5,000

$5,200

$5,400

$5,600

$5,800

$6,000

$6,200

F Y 0 2

F Y 0 3

F Y 0 4

F Y 0 5

F Y 0 6

F Y 0 7

F Y 0 8

F Y 0 9

F Y 1 0

F Y 1 1

F Y 1 2

F Y 1 3

F Y 1 4

F Y 1 5 *

F Y 1 6 *

F Y 1 7 *

North Carolina state funding per pupil for public education(inflation adjusted)

Classroom resources

dwindle

J.C. Tayloe Elementary lostmost of its teacher assistants as aresult of the 2011 budget decisions. An instructional support firstenvisioned by former Gov. Jim

Hunt, teacher assistants (oftenknown as TAs) give studentsindividual help in reading or math,make sure students with specialneeds receive focused instructionand keep the classroom free fromdisruptions. And they are especiallyimportant now that classroom size

ABOVE — $1.04 billion cut in total state funding for public schools between

fiscal 2008, the peak year of spending for K–12 education, and fiscal 2011,

when adjusted for inflation. For fiscal years 2015 through 2017, budget figures

exclude pay increases to follow prior practice so that accurate comparisons can

be made over time.

LEFT — In 2014, North Carolina ranked 47th in the nation in per-student

spending. The state is among 14 others continuing to spend at least 10percent less on a per-pupil basis than they did in 2008. (Note: Hawaii, Indiana

and Iowa are excluded because data for valid comparison are not available.)

Sources: N.C. Budget & Tax Center; N.C. Department of Public Instruction;

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; National Center for Education Statistics

7

— rank of North Carolina among 50 states in largest percentage

of reduction in per-pupil spending from 2007–08 to 2014–15

-23.6%-17.8%-17.5%-16.2%

-14.6%-14.6%

-14.5%-13.7%-13.3%-12.3%

-11.4%-11.0%-11.0%-10.2%

-9.5%-9.4%-9.3%-8.1%-8.1%-6.4%

-4.5%-3.8%-3.2%-3.2%-2.2%-2.2%-0.8%-0.3%-0.2%-0.1%

0.3%1.0%1.1%1.6%2.3%2.4%3.6%3.8%4.0%

5.4%5.6%5.9%6.3%6.7%

9.1%16.4%

31.6%

Oklahoma Alabama ArizonaIdahoWisconsinKansas

North CarolinaUtahMaineMississippi

Kentucky Georgia VirginiaSouth CarolinaMichigan TexasIllinoisSouth DakotaNew MexicoFlorida ArkansasNevadaCaliforniaLouisianaMontanaWest Virginia TennesseeNew Jersey Colorado Vermont

OhioNebraska

PennsylvaniaNew Hampshire

OregonNew York Missouri

MinnesotaWyoming Maryland

Rhode IslandWashington

MassachusettsDelaware

Connecticut Alaska

North Dakota

Percent change in spending

per student, FY08 to FY15

(inflation adjusted)

2008 pre-recession levels, spending

roughly $500 less per student. In2014, North Carolina ranked 47th in

the nation in per-student spending.Big employers looking to

establish themselves in NorthCarolina never used to question thestate’s commitment to investing in

public schools – but now they are,said Keith Poston, the N.C. PublicSchool Forum’s executive director.

Poston said people from out ofstate are now asking him morefrequently, “What’s going on with your education system? It seemslike you’re taking a step back.”

assistants, teachers, etc.) has beenreduced by over $1 billion,” since2008–09.

In the 2013–15 biennial budget,the legislature’s allocation forpublic schools was more than$100 million below what the state budget office recommended as

necessary to maintain the statusquo and more than $500 millionless (adjusted for inflation) than

what was spent on public educationin 2008.

And the new budget for 2015–17 continues that trend withinvestments that remain well below


20/48


limits have been eliminated by state

lawmakers.Tayloe’s principal, Bubs Carson,

now must spread six TAs outaround his building, each coveringfour or fi ve classrooms in a day.They now spend maybe an hour ineach room, giving teachers short

bathroom breaks, quickly working with students who need one-on-onehelp the most, then moving on tothe next room.

“Students just no longer receivethe one-on-one assistance they usedto get in years past,” Carson said.

Staf fing isn’t the only dwindlingresource in the classroom — so areclassroom supplies. Carter andother teachers dip into their ownpockets to buy supplies and to meetemergency student needs. Carter

said she typically spends $500 to$600 a year. Compared with 2008,the state has reduced the publicschools’ classroom supplies budget

by 52 percent.Beaufort County is mostly

rural with a large number of poorresidents. At Tayloe, 77 percent ofthe students qualify for subsidizedlunches.

“Often when children come tomy classroom, they are hungry,”Carter said. “They need to be fed

before they can think about readingcomprehension. And I don’t knowhow many children come to school

who are sleeping three or four to a bed. And maybe one sibling wets the

bed. So they come to school hungry,tired and wearing yesterday’sclothes, sometimes soaked withurine.”

“Let me be clear,” added Carson,the school’s principal. “Ourteachers have been back and forthto that Wal-Mart across the streetpurchasing their own supplies fortheir classrooms.”

Every teacher at her school,Carter speculates, has boughtclothing for students at one timeor another or taken a child to getcleaned up and fed so they can

learn. It’s a combination of teachers’

own money, whatever support thePTA can lend and church donationsthat foots the bill.

Perhaps recognizing that their budget cuts have made it impossible

to have the necessary resources onhand, in 2011 lawmakers enacteda tax credit for teachers whopurchased classroom supplies out of

their own pockets. They eliminatedthat credit in 2013, only to reinstateit this year.

Goodbye textbooks and

electives

The effects of North Carolina’sshift from being a state known forits investments in public educationto one that ranks behind states suchas Mississippi and South Carolina in

per-student spending are painfullyclear to Roosevelt Alston, whoretired this year from his job asprincipal of Bunn Middle School

in Franklin County.The days of taking home a

textbook to study, for example,are long gone. “We try to keepclassroom sets [of textbooks] onhand,” said Alston, whose school

is in rural Franklin County, “butthere is no money for new textbookadoption.”

In 2010, the recession forcedthe legislature, then still led byDemocrats, to nearly zero outspending on new textbooks; theallocation dropped to less than $3million from the previous year’s$121 million. It was intended to bea temporary measure.

But since then, the legislature has

largely left that large hole in place.There were some modest year-to-year increases to the textbook budget, and lawmakers have budgeted a significant increase forthe next two years. But the total isstill less than half of what it was in2010, which leaves some classrooms

32 — percent reduction in funding for teacher assistants in the last seven years

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

Number of state-funded teacher assistants in N.C. public schools

FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10 FY11 FY12 FY13 FY14 FY15

Today 7,000 fewer teacher assistants are employed by the state than in

2008. Lawmakers have steadily cut funds for early-grade teacher assistants over

the last five years, along with many other items in the public schools budget.

Sources: N.C. Budget & Tax Center; N.C. Department of Public Instruction


21/48


has adopted this school throughthe ‘Hand in Hand’ program formore than 10 years,” said Carson.“Through their generosity, thatchurch gives us money so that if achild has a hole in his shoe or needsdecent clothes, we can go out andget what the child needs.”

The local church also provideshungry children with food onthe weekends as well as books,classroom supplies and othernecessities Carson identifies. Yet while the community support is welcome and deeply appreciated,it remains hard to replace what’sperhaps most desperately needed— more staff, more instructionalassistance and more academicinterventions.

Carter wants the state’s leaders

to better understand how costly itis to disinvest in public education.

“I offer my classroom,” she said,“to any lawmaker willing to spendsome real time here to see the gapsfor him or herself.” ■


with outdated textbooks or none atall. Many teachers rely on handouts— and often have to pay the copyingcosts themselves.

Myra Bridgers, an eighth gradelanguage arts teacher who has beenteaching for more than 20 years inFranklin County schools, said the

past few years have been the worstshe’s seen in terms of budget cuts.One casualty of lawmakers’

decision to disinvest in publiceducation, Bridgers said, is toofew classes for students to take.“Sometimes students take PE[physical education] or computerclasses twice or even three times inone day. We just can’t afford moreteachers to teach the extra classes

we need.” At Bunn, no one is available to

teach any foreign languages; theonly option is to take the classesonline through the state’s virtualpublic schools.

“Parents always ask, is this all yougot to offer?” Alston said.

Remediation falls by the

wayside

Alston came to Bunn MiddleSchool in 2008, intent ontransforming it from a low-

performing school to a place wherestudents excelled. He implementeda strong remediation program forstruggling students. Children withlearning dif ficulties were identifiedearly in the school year, and then

Alston hired teachers to stay afterschool to work with them. He evenhired drivers to get the childrenhome on activity buses after theygot extra help. Bunn also had a full-time summer school remediationprogram, complete with breakfast,lunch and buses.

In just five years, Bunn’sperformance composite, which is

based on end-of-grade test scores,increased from the low 60thpercentile up to the 81st percentile.

But the school’s remediation

program was slowly whittled down by budget cuts, then eliminatedaltogether. Students who needextra help now must rely on thegood will of teachers who are notcompensated for any extra timethey can devote to students.

There’s no turnaround in sight.

Forfi

scal 2015, state lawmakers cutfunding for at-risk student servicesprograms by more than $9 million.

It’s a perplexing scenario giventhat Senate leader Phil Bergerrecently pushed reforms aimedat improving the achievementof underperforming students.Policies contained in Berger’sExcellent Public Schools Act of2013 require schools to do betterat remediating students who don’tread proficiently. The law also

sanctioned an A-F school gradingscheme that punishes schools

whose students don’t perform wellon standardized tests.

Without the funds and resourcesnecessary to accomplish these endgoals, the desired results appear to

be very dif ficult to achieve.

Falling back on the

community

The resources keep dwindling

as the needs grow ever greater, but Barbara Carter remains anexuberant and upbeat presencein her second-grade classroom atJ.C. Tayloe. She’s an experiencedprofessional who cares about her

work and about the children.Still, she said, it’s harder to give

the children the attention they need without more help from a teacherassistant. “I’m just left to believethat the current leadership justdoesn’t support public education,”she said.

Principal Carson said that theschool will continue to rely onthe goodwill of the community totry to fill in the gaps left by statelawmakers.

“First United Methodist Church

7,000 — fewer teacher assistants now state-funded, compared with 2008

Done with the grind

Roosevelt Alston, who retired this year from

his job as principal of Bunn Middle School,

saw firsthand the effects of budget cuts to

public education.



22/48


Losing its luster

B y any measure, Asheville Middle School’sChris Gable was a teaching star.

Gable outperformed all of his colleaguesas measured by his students’ test scores, and hehad a gift for engaging his students. He coached

young writers and was alwaysfinding innovative ways to make language arts interesting.

But a salary low enough to qualify him and hisfamily for Medicaid and food assistance, combined

with a lack of other professional support, forcedhim to leave his beloved town and state in searchof a living wage.

Low pay, lack of respect prompt teachers to rethink their chosen profession

25 — rank of North Carolina among the 50 states in average teacher salary, 2008–09

Hanging by a thread

Teachers and their allies, at a 2014

rally in downtown Raleigh, call for

more support from the legislature.




23/48

Losing its luster 21

“I feel guilty,” said Gable, who lefttwo years ago for a teaching position

in Columbus, Ohio. There, Gablesaid, he would earn nearly $30,000a year more than the $38,000 he

was making in North Carolina with10 years’ experience and a master’sdegree.

“I wanted to continue to serve thiscommunity, but the state legislature

has made it impossible,” he said.Gable is one of many. According

to surveys conducted by the N.C.Department of Public Instruction,teacher turnover rates have risensignificantly over the past fi ve years.

What’s up for debate is whyteachers are leaving. Some say thefigure does not represent a massexodus because teachers are fed up,

but rather that teachers are simply

retiring early or moving to otherschool districts within the state.

But what is clear is that theteaching profession in NorthCarolina has taken a lot of hits overthe past several years and that many

teachers are exhausted, frustratedand ready to get out.

Teacher pay hits bottom

In the 1990s, then-Gov. Jim Hunt

persuaded legislators to lift teacher

pay to the national average tomake North Carolina an attractivedestination for highly qualifiedteachers. But the commitment didn’tlast. Between 2008 and 2014, teacherssaw their salaries frozen, save fora small increase offset by a rise inhealth insurance premiums. By 2014,

the state had fallen in nationalrankings on teacher pay to 47th.

National Superintendent of the Year and former State Board ofEducation adviser Mark Edwards

has a daughter who recentlycompleted a teaching degree.She didn’t even try to teach here,Edwards told the State Board,instead taking a teaching job inTennessee, where she will makeabout $11,000 a year more than a

starting teacher in North Carolina.In 2013, the starting salary

for beginning teachers was just$30,800. Lawmakers have workedsince then to bring the starting pay

back up to $35,000 (where it wasin 2008, adjusted for inflation). Butcompare that with Texas’ average

starting salary of $47,000.“On starting teacher pay andaverage teacher salaries, weare below Virginia, we’re belowTennessee, we’re below Kentucky,

we’re below South Carolina, we’re below Georgia,” said Keith Poston,executive director of the PublicSchool Forum of North Carolina.“How can we expect to get the kindsof high quality teachers that weneed when we can’t even keep ourown teachers in North Carolina?”

While lawmakers raised beginningteachers’ salaries in 2014 and 2015,

veteran teachers were for the most

part left behind, with minuscule pay

bumps over the past several years, base salaries capped at $50,000 and

salary supplements eliminated forteachers who earn master’s degrees.

“Of all industries, educationshould reward lifelong learning,”said June Atkinson, the state’s top

school of fi

cial. “And there is plentyof evidence to show that a master’sdegree in a teacher’s area of studyreally makes a difference in studentachievement.”

CJ Flay, a teacher at North IredellMiddle School in Olin, expressedhis disappointment in a letter toN.C. Policy Watch about the endingof salary supplement for advanceddegree holders. “I would never havegone on to pursue my degree if thatdecision had been made prior to

August 2006,” said Flay in his letter.He said his wife, also a teacher,decided not to pursue a master’s

0.00%

2.00%

4.00%

6.00%

8.00%

10.00%

12.00%

14.00%

16.00%

Teacher turnover rates, 2010–15

2 01 0–1 1 2 01 1–1 2 2 01 2– 13 2 01 3– 14 20 14 –15

Exodus of teachers?

Teacher turnover rates have risen significantly. While some debate

whether teachers are simply retiring early, moving to other school

districts within the state or leaving the state or profession altogether,

many teachers say they are exhausted, frustrated and ready to get out.

Source: N.C. Department of Public Instruction

47 — rank of North Carolina among the 50 states in average teacher salary, 2013–14


24/48


degree because she could not expect

a raise that would help her repaythe cost of obtaining that degree.

Lawmakers do away with

Teaching Fellows

As teachers expressed frustrations

with the changes infl

icted on theirprofession by the legislature —not just low pay, but also cuts toclassroom supplies and teacherassistants and the loss of tenure —the UNC system has experienced a27 percent decline in undergraduate

and graduate teaching programsfrom 2010 to 2014.

One incentive was eliminated in2011 when state lawmakers beganphasing out the North CarolinaTeaching Fellows program, which

awards scholarships to NorthCarolina high school students topursue teaching degrees in the state.

Graduates of the highly selectiveprogram were then required toteach for four years in NorthCarolina. More than 75 percent ofTeaching Fellows stay in the state

beyond fi ve years.The legislators took money

earmarked for the program and putit toward expanding the presenceof Teach for America (TFA), a

national program designed toprovide college graduates withoutdegrees in education minimaltraining and place them in jobs inlow-performing schools.

Teach for America’s retentionrates are poor, however. On anational level, only 28 percentof TFA teachers remain inpublic schools beyond fi ve years,compared with 50 percent of non-TFA teachers.

While the Teaching Fellowsprogram was relatively small,doing away with it was a symbolicgesture, according to one ofthe program’s last graduates, TaceyMiller.

“Teaching Fellows was createdin North Carolina and used as a

national model for other programslooking to do something similar,”said Miller, who questioned why there is a will to eliminate aprogram that has worked so wellto prepare future teachers and lurethose thinking about teaching intothe profession.

Due process rights

eliminated

Another serious blow to theprofession is the elimination of

tenure, formally known as “careerstatus.”

Tenure isn’t a guarantee of a job, but rather an assurance of dueprocess before a teacher can be fired

or demoted. It was an important benefit for teachers who oftenfound themselves at the mercy of

politicized school boards if theyspoke out against harmful policies.Legislation passed in 2013 would

have eliminated tenure for allteachers by 2018, but the courtsrolled back part of that that law

11.1 — percent rate of North Carolina teacher turnover, 2010–11

Sinking toward the cellar

Between 2008 and 2014, teacher salaries were frozen, except for a small

increase to offset a rise in health insurance premiums. By 2014, the state fell in

national rankings of teacher pay to 47th.

Source: NEA Rankings of the States 2014 and Estimates of School Statistics2015; N.C. Department of Public Instruction

2 0 0 5

- 0 6

2 0 0 4

- 0 5

2 0 0 6

- 0 7

2 0 0 7

- 0 8

2 0 0 8

- 0 9

2 0 0 9

- 1 0

2 0 1 0

- 1 1

2 0 1 1

- 1 2

2 0 1 3

- 1 4

2 0 1 4

- 1 5

47,516

49,088

51,142

52,963

54,354

55,225 55,586 55,522 56,065

56,610

43,34343,922

46,137

47,633

48,454

46,850 46,700

45,93345,737

44,990

$40,000

$45,000

$50,000

$55,000

$60,000

National average N.C. average

Falling behind: N.C. average teacher pay vs. national average


25/48


26/48


Paving the waytoward privatization

“Vouchers = theft”

Teachers gather on the mall outside the N.C. General

Assembly in 2013 to speak out against state

lawmakers’ cuts to public eduction.

Photo by Clayton Henkel

Since taking charge in Raleigh, conservative lawmakershave been steering public dollars into a range ofalternatives to traditional public schools that march

under the banner of “school choice.”Beginning as a trickle, but with the potential to become

a flood, spending is growing for vouchers to pay tuition atprivate and religious schools; an expanded roster of charter

schools run by for-profit companies; and two virtual charterschools operated by a scandal-plagued company.

Meanwhile, those same legislators are squeezingconventional K-12 schools with budgets that place NorthCarolina near the bottom of national rankings for teacherpay and per-pupil spending. A central rationale for providingthese alternatives is that traditional schools fall short ineducating children from low-income households andcommunities, children of color and children with specialneeds.

But even as they cite end-of-grade test results and otherdata to demonstrate the shortcomings of conventionalschools, the legislators are requiring no such accountability

from voucher programs and charters. So far, there is noevidence that at-risk children fare better on average in thealternative settings and an abundance of anecdotal examples

in which they are clearly worse off.

Legislators embrace vouchers, charter school expansion, disregard calls for accountability

4,200 — amount in dollars of vouchers provided to low-income

students to use at private or religious schools



27/48

Paving the way toward privatization 25

Vouchers for unaccountable

private schools

In 2013, legislators opened thedoor for sending taxpayer fundsto private schools, 70 percent of which are religious in orientationand sponsorship. And some arehome schools pretending to besomething more.

School vouchers of $4,200 a year,formally known as “OpportunityScholarships,” are touted as a wayto help low-income and minoritychildren who are falling behind intheir local public schools by providingaccess to better options in privateones. The program is stronglyembraced by conservatives, but thereis concern about accountability intheir own ranks.

Near the end of the 2015 legislativesession, a group of Republicansin the House banded together to

block a proposal by school voucherchampion state Rep. Paul “Skip”Stam (R-Wake) that would have putthe voucher program on track fora major expansion. Among them was state Rep. Leo Daughtry (R-Johnston), who described one school

in his district benefiting from the vouchers.

“I went to visit this school,”

Daughtry said. “It’s in the backof a church, and it has like 10 or12 students – and one teacher, orone-and-a-half teachers. I think youneed to go slow with OpportunityScholarships. From what I saw,[it] didn’t seem to be a school that we would want to send taxpayerdollars to.”

Before the voucher program began, there was little concernabout the low level of state oversight

of private schools because they

received no public money. The voucher money is flowing now— $11 million this year, with $24million budgeted for 2016 — butprivate schools are subject tominimal requirements for studentassessment and none at all for

19,105 — tuition, in dollars, for students in grades 1–4 at Charlotte Country Day School

Back of the church

Star Christian Academy, which Daughtry raised concerns about, is housed in the

back of New Generation Christian Church in Smithfield. The private school has

received more than $12,000 in school voucher funding for 2015–16.


“I went to visit this school. It’s in the back of a

church, and it has like 10 or 12 students — and one

teacher, or one-and-a-half teachers. I think you

need to go slow with Opportunity Scholarships. From what I saw, [it] didn’t seem to be a school

that we would want to send taxpayer dollars to.”

— State Rep. Leo Daughtry (R-Johnston)in response to a legislative proposal to expand school vouchers


28/48


$10.8 million

$17.6 million

$24.8 million

$0

$5

$10

$15

$20

$25

$30

2014–15 2015–16 2016–17

( i n m i l l i o n s )

Funds for voucher program

0

— number of credentials, licenses or levels of educational attainment required of

teachers at schools eligible to receive taxpayer-funded vouchers

curricula, instructional staff orfinancial viability. The schoolscan choose the pupils they wantto admit and are free to providereligious instruction.

Only low-income families arenow eligible for vouchers, but it isexpected that those requirements

will ease in the future.Public school advocates andother stakeholders mounted alegal challenge to the program soonafter its inception. They won thefirst round when Franklin CountySuperior Court Judge Robert H.Hobgood ruled that the program

violated the state constitution.“The General Assembly fails the

children of North Carolina whenthey are sent with public taxpayermoney to private schools that have

no legal obligation to teach themanything,” he wrote.

Early this year, the state Supreme

Court overturned Hobgood’s order,allowing the voucher program tocontinue without requiring anyadditional accountability.

Charter schools expand

their market share

In 2011, North Carolina lifted thecap on the number of charter schools

that can operate in the state. Whenfirst established in the 1990s, theschools were billed as laboratoriesof innovation, where best practicescould be developed and shared withlocal public school systems. Withthe expansion, legislators divertedmore funds from traditional schoolsand increasingly into the hands offor-profit operators.

Some charters provide students with an exceptional education.Typically those high performersare well-resourced, with strongcommunity support and often with additional funding fromphilanthropic interests.

Charter schools that don’t attractextra funding and community support

are at risk of poor academic and

financial performance. The schoolsreceive per-pupil funding that matches

traditional public schools, but they’renot subject to the same oversightand accountability standards. Stateoversight has become even spottier inrecent years because staf fing has notgrown to keep up with the increased

number of schools.Problems have ensued. A 2015state auditor’s report found thata Kinston charter school’s CEOmismanaged hundreds of thousands

of dollars over several years. Theschool shut down just a few daysinto the 2013-14 school year, leaving

its students academically homeless.Three Charlotte-area schools

also abru

Documents

Altered State: How 5 years of conservative rule have redefined North Carolina