Fitzsimon File

Legislative leaders have until October 12 to come back to Raleigh if they want to try to override Governor Easley’s veto of a bill making it easier for North Carolina schools to hire out of state teachers.  State lawmakers passed the bill to address the teacher shortage faced by many schools across the state.

Easley says changing the standards for out of state teachers “hurts the state badly and is dishonest.”  Local school boards and school administrators supported the legislation. The North Carolina Association of Educators opposed it. 

Easley’s staff had been working with legislators to come up with a compromise plan but no agreement was reached before Easley’s veto. The political world is buzzing about a possible override and what else lawmakers might be tempted to take up in a special session.

But the substance of the bill deserves more attention. The state does face a massive teacher shortage as enrollment at public schools continues to increase. Schools unable to hire out of state teachers will turn to substitutes to make it through the year.

The state needs to hire roughly 10,000 new teachers a year. North Carolina colleges and universities produce about 3,000. Just over 2,000 actually end up teachers.  The General Assembly did pass legislation to allow college graduates to get teaching certificates at community colleges, but that alone won’t solve the problem.

Somebody better come up with a long-range plan. It is hard to keep pushing for education improvements when there are not enough qualified teachers for the classrooms. Easley needs to lead the effort. We know what he doesn’t want to do.  Now we need to know what he has in mind.

Erskine Bowles hasn’t started his new job at President of the University of North Carolina yet, but he is already getting advice. The anti-government crowd wants him to abolish the Center for Poverty, Work, and Opportunity at the UNC Law School. The Center is run by former Senator John Edwards.

Edwards is campaigning around the country to raise the minimum wage and the Center is also associated with other anti-poverty efforts, like the earned income tax credit. It is not clear which bothers the right-wingers more, that Edwards runs the Center, or that it supports efforts to help the poor with higher wages and tax credits.  They still claim that poverty is a choice after all.

Bowles has enough on his plate as he takes over. Leaders of UNC Chapel-Hill and NC State are pushing for the freedom to raise their own tuition without the approval from the Board of Governors.

Powerful lawmakers inserted a provision in the budget this past year to allow booster clubs to pay in-state tuition for scholarships for out of state athletes. Have to help those booster clubs save money, even if means less money for the universities.  The system also faces huge enrollment increases and constant budget battles.

There is a dire need for strong leadership from the president’s office and from the Board of Governors. If Bowles is going to steady the ship, he needs to figure out a way to make it clear that he will work with the General Assembly, but not cower to the wishes of a handful of power lawmakers who want to run the university.

He needs the Board of Governors to help him by reasserting its authority, too.  Governor Easley could help by pushing to change the way the Board is elected, making them all appointed instead of elected by the General Assembly. 

Registered lobbyists for other interests also ought to be banned from serving on the Board. How can they stand up to lawmakers if they need legislative help for their corporate clients? Bowles has his work cut out for him.

State lawmakers provided no new funding this past session for the English as a Second Language program in public schools. A new study confirms the shortsightedness of that decision. The Urban Institute finds that the state has the second fastest growing population of immigrant students from kindergarten to the fifth grade in the country.

The Charlotte Observer reports that there are now 10,000 students in the school system learning to speak English. Ten years ago, there were 2,000. Kids who need help with English are showing up at school and there ought to be programs in place to help them.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 30th, 2005 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.