State Legislators Consider Prioritizing Private School Vouchers Over Teacher Pay Raise

State to increase teacher pay? Asheville has NC’s worst teacher turnover; cost of living

A teacher pay raise pushed for by the governor and public school educators — whose colleagues have quit in droves in places such as Asheville — appears unlikely as lawmakers look to prioritize private school vouchers according to legislators interviewed about the current budget process. The Republican-majority General Assembly is hashing out plans for a surplus that recently shrank from $1.4 billion to $1 billion after a revised revenue forecast. Chad Anderson, an Asheville School of Inquiry and Life Sciences social studies teacher with a master’s degree and more than two decades of experience in Asheville City Schools, panned the idea of boosting private school vouchers, a program favored by the Republican-majority General Assembly. Asheville City Schools turnover is the worst in the state, driven by a base state salary teachers say hasn’t kept up with a cost of living that is the highest in North Carolina.

For a starting teacher, the state pays $39,000 a year, an amount boosted by local supplements to $43,290 for ACS teachers. “Republicans are planning to put nearly half of the budget surplus aside for families to pull their children from public school classrooms,” Anderson said. “Despite having no means of assessing the quality of the education at these charter and private, often times religious, institutions.” Voucher advocates say they give parents more choice, though the program’s recent extension to wealthier households has been labeled by critics as a private school taxpayer giveaway. Instead, money should go toward an 8.5% teacher pay raise, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, and public school advocates have said. Two years ago legislators approved a 4% teacher pay raise for 2024 and 3% for 2025.

Senate Appropriations Chair Republican Ralph Hise, whose 47th District includes nine northern mountain counties, told the Citizen Times no decisions had been made about pay increases above the 3%, but said the governor’s proposals have “never been relevant in our process and probably won’t be this year.” Democratic Sen. Julie Mayfield, who represents Asheville and most of Buncombe County in the 49th District, said GOP leaders would have to use much of the surplus for Medicaid and were also under pressure to help child care centers. Vouchers and tax cuts were their other big priorities. “This is a deliberate funding shortage, because Republicans have chosen to cut taxes,” Mayfield said.

N.C. Association of Educators President Tamika Walker Kelly said the state has the money to fully fund schools, meaning “protecting the health and safety of our students, serving them with hot and healthy meals, and providing them with the individual support they need to succeed by fixing the educator shortage crisis.” Some Republicans say they support higher educator salaries, though aren’t clear about the amount. Ruth Smith, a candidate for the 115th state House District covering northern and western Buncombe, told the Citizen Times in an email she “would like to see teacher pay increased,” but didn’t respond to a follow-up message asking for more details.

Her Democratic opponent, incumbent Rep. Lindsey Prather, is a former teacher who said she remembers living “paycheck to paycheck” and supports the governor’s proposed raises. “We need to pay teachers like the highly qualified professionals that they are, or we will continue to lose thousands of them each year, with fewer and fewer interested in taking their place,” Prather said.