• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Ongoing NC GOP debacle thread

Largest teacher pay raise in history put on the table. The benefits of economic growth come to North Carolina public schools.

After overhauling taxes last year in a way that significantly reduced state resources and shifted the tax load away from the wealthiest taxpayers and profitable corporations and onto ordinary North Carolinians, policymakers are using smoke and mirrors to try to hide the damage they’ve done.

Revenue is coming in well below projections for the fiscal year that ends June 30 – a trend that will continue next year, when the shortfall could reach as high as $600 million. The cost of the tax plan now appears far greater than feared, both in dollars and cents and in the harm it is causing ordinary families and communities across the state.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/06/03/3908961/nc-lawmakers-must-face-up-to-the.html#storylink=cpy

WOOPS
 
Here is a very interesting take on the teacher raise and the budget politics.

http://www.forum.jamesdhogan.com/2014/06/a-clever-way-to-get-rid-of-teachers.html?m=1

1. Set up a pay raise for political talking points
2. Structure the salary schedule to encourage late-career teachers to leave before pension eligibility
3. Strip the rest of the budget to pay the teachers, thus setting up a "teachers vs. everyone else" political talking point

Point #3 goes back to a point I made a while back on this thread, which is that teachers are politically vulnerable when they focus all their energy on getting a pay raise.

He also believes that ending tenure will enable discrimination against late-career teachers to save on pension dollars. I don't know that this point is very real, because I think that kind of behavior is not going to pass muster under Federal age discrimination law. Plus the people making the hiring and firing decisions don't currently have any incentive to save the state on pension money by discriminating against senior teachers and making themselves vulnerable to a lawsuit, and it's unclear how the state would induce local school boards and principals to go along with such a plot.
 
"He is also not thrilled with the Senate teacher pay proposal that gives an average of an 11 percent raise to teachers who give up career status protections and slashes almost $400 million in school spending to pay for it, including laying off 7,400 teacher assistants and cutting funding for school nurses.

The Pennsylvania governor has taken a lot of heat for cutting back on nurses in schools. Whether nurses could have prevented it or not, a lot of terrible PR follows when a kid dies in a school with no nurse.
 
The NC Senate has gone completely off the rails. They've moved on from fighting battles with the people in NC right on to fighting battles with the House and the Governor. Their antics make the US House look tame by comparison. Straight up Tea Party shenanigans.
 
McCrory appointed someone with light credentials. This isn't really news anymore.
 
McCrory appointed someone with light credentials. This isn't really news anymore.

There are a few angles about it that stand out to me.

1. She was laughably undeserving of the honor, and as the INDY Week author says she symbolizes McCrory's middle finger to North Carolina's arts and literary tradition. Yes, she resigned, but that doesn't absolve McCrory of criticism.

2. On the other hand, the INDY author's tone is somewhat unsettling, maybe too personal, definitely douchey, and this has even gotten attention from a Slate writer. However like the Slate author acknowledges, I do appreciate that this is something he's passionate about, and to his credit he responded to her criticism.

3. This gave me a chance to learn more about the history of the position and more broadly NC's literary tradition, which responses to one skeptical commenter showed is greater than I originally thought:

Also: North Carolina is artsier than our current legislature would imply. F Scott Fitzgerald used to hang out in Asheville back in the day (Zelda was institutionalized near there) , O. Henry is from Greensboro, David and Amy Sedaris grew up in Raleigh. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro's MFA program is pretty routinely ranked in the top 5 MFA programs in the country. There's a lot of arts and writing going on.

...

Maya Angelou just passed away in Winston Salem. Thomas Wolfe is the heavy hitter. A R Ammons is my favorite poet of his generation. Daniel Wallace. Playwright Romulus Linney grew up in Boone. Black Mountain Poets: Charles Olson, Robert Creely, Denise Levertov. Carl Sandburg. Tony Hoagland. Zora Neale Hurston taught at NCCU.
And finally, the best American play of all time in my opinion (argue with me, i love talking plays) is the Kentucky Cycle by Robert Schenkkan. Folks haven't heard of it because it came out the year before Angels in America. His latest, All the Way, just won the Tony for best play.
I always like to say: if you can make it in Carrboro, you can make it anywhere.
 
3. This gave me a chance to learn more about the history of the position and more broadly NC's literary tradition, which responses to one skeptical commenter showed is greater than I originally thought:

Off the top of my head:

Zelda Fitzgerald died in Asheville in the Highland Hospital fire.

Orson Scott Card lives in Greensboro
 
Personally, I think it's cool that positions like Poet Laureate are no longer limited to the elite, accomplished, published poets, way up there in their ivory towers writing poetry and eating fine cheeses and being snooty. This appointment showed that fucking ANYBODY can be Poet Laureate. You wrote a poem once in your personal diary? BOOM - you're the new Poet Laureate. You once did a drunken free-style rap at a house party? BOOM - new Poet Laureate.

Dream big, my friends. McCrory might make them come true.
 
Back
Top