In other words, she wants teachers to not pay their “fair share”
(Raleigh N&O) Legislators rejected a suggestion from the elected state schools chief that the state exempt teachers from personal income taxes.
June Atkinson, the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, told News & Observer editorial writers and reporters Monday that teachers should be exempt, but said she would not have made the suggestion if teachers were going to receive raises next year. The tax break for traditional K-12 and charter teachers would cost about $300 million, she said. The state Department of Public Instruction chief fiscal officer put the cost at $250 million.
The suggestion from Atkinson, who is a Demcocrat, as the N&O finally gets around to telling us, went over like a lead balloon.
Atkinson and other education leaders have been frustrated by low teacher salaries. State Board of Education Chairman Bill Cobey, a Republican, said last week that one of his top priorities is increasing teacher pay. The state’s starting salary for teachers is $30,800 a year. Teachers without advanced degrees or certification from the National Board of Professional Teacher Standards must have 15 years experience before they clear $40,000 on the state salary schedule.
Two points: first, blame Democrats, who have controlled the the Governors mansion and the General Assembly for the most part over the last 50 years, and the teacher’s unions for negotiating the contracts. 2nd, if teachers were able to get raises based on performance and merit, they might make more. Third, if the teachers do not like the salaries (working 9 months a year, awesome pensions, excellent health plans) they can do (or attempt to do) what so many other citizens do: look for a new job. No one forced them into teaching. Lots of others make the same money or less. They have no right to use the North Carolina citizens as their ATM.
4th, perhaps teachers could show that they are more interested in education rather than indoctrination. They could work to stop the crazies and Marxists and America haters and such, in the teaching ranks, in administration, and in the union leadership. Most teachers are surely good people (I know many, considering I went to ECU, which turns out lots of teachers), but are overshadowed by the wackos.
Still, they do not deserve to be excluded from paying income tax.
I’ll go along with that as soon as she includes the military in her exemption — the ones who actually risk life, limb and, sometimes, mind in service to the country that allows her to safely spew such idiocy in the first place.
I’ve always felt that if one serves in the military, they should get more of a reward than crappy healthcare, low interest loans, and a sense of national pride. For those who’ve given body parts, there should be an even greater reward than being tossed to the streets. I’d say give them a car or truck and free private healthcare.
Teachers? I’d say, they need to test each year or so to retain their positions. Not just attend conferences to earn “hours”.
I could go for that, DL. Especially since the military has a lower pay scale than teachers.