Hood column: The wrong questions about N.C. education policy
Thursday, January 31st, 2008
By Staff
By John Hood RALEIGH — We are about to see nomination battles heat up for several state offices, including North Carolina's governor, lieutenant governor, state treasurer, and state legislature. In all of these cases, look for education to be at or near the top of the list of debated issues — and for the candidates to assert with great passion answers to the usual, wrong questions. Listening to the political rhetoric, North Carolina voters could be forgiven for believing that the state's mediocre educational performance is caused by teacher pay that is lower than the national average, school funding that is too inequitable, a school year that is too short, and school leadership that is too diffuse. What are we to do about these problems? The truth is that it doesn't much matter, as these are really not pressing problems. North Carolina's teacher pay, for instance, is hardly low by national standards. The teacher union claims otherwise, but it fails to adjust nominal teacher salaries for differences in living costs, experience, and non-wage benefits. If you were making $40,000 in Lexington, North Carolina and someone offered you $45,000 to move to Lexington, Massachusetts, would you simply assume that you would be getting a $5,000 raise, or would you check to see how much more it would cost you to buy a home, drive a car, or purchase goods and services? Of course you would do the latter. (more…)
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