Gov. McCrory and top legislative leaders announced a plan today to increase the starting pay for NC teachers. The plan would increase base starting pay from $30,800 to $35,000 by the 2015-2016 school year. This would affect approximately 32,000 teachers statewide.

Although the plan begins to address a portion of the teacher compensation problem, NCSBA believes that all teachers are valuable and should be adequately compensated through sufficient salary increases to the teacher salary schedule. This plan would only affect 34% of teachers statewide, leaving a large percentage without respected compensation increases they deserve. The plan doesn’t address the problem of beginning teacher salaries remaining fixed for the first five years. As well, the plan doesn’t address salary schedule increases for those teachers who obtain a Master’s Degree in either education or in their field of teaching.

“We continue to lose dedicated teachers to our neighboring states because we refuse to invest the resources necessary to ensure teaching as a viable career path,” said NCSBA Executive Director Dr. Ed Dunlap. “The plan doesn’t include many of the things that school board members believe to be important.”