The NC legislature, which has sparked the weekly peaceful protests known as “Moral Monday“, named budget conferees last week. The first 17 people arrested back in April (out of the almost 500 arrests thus far) have had their hearings set for late September.  By the time the court is hearing their cases, traditional calendar school will be getting underway and year round school will be in its third month.

As they hash out the final budget negotiations, we await to hear which budget proposal the compromises will favor. Although in the past five years teachers’ salaries have been frozen and state funding for public schools has fallen by $170 million, right now the best we can hope in most cases for is to maintain this fairly miserable status quo. 

The chart to the right was created by NCAE and can be viewed here with more details. The bold green text indicates which budget on an  issue NCAE prefers.

“No change”.

It’s not what one would expect to be hoping for, considering things are so dismal. Rodney Ellis (president of the N.C. Association of Educators) has been quoted as saying: Continue reading Vol.#31: Change, Change, Change (Change of Fools) →