Are Red States More Generous To Teachers?

It’s an intriguing question, particularly given the interchangeability of the NEA and the DNC over the past several decades. “In May, about 19,000 North Carolina teachers gathered in Raleigh to ‘Rally for Respect,’ an event organized by the N.C. Association of Educators,” Andy Taylor writes in the Carolina Journal. “The choice of the word ‘respect’ was important.”

“It implied attendees felt disrespected. By whom? The Republican-led General Assembly, of course. You can select all sorts of statistics, but many important ones aren’t consistent with NCAE’s argument. For example, we often hear how low North Carolina teacher pay is in state rankings, but a better way is to compare it against measures of cost of living or median income. We are 29th in average public elementary and secondary teacher pay as a percent of median household income. It’s nothing to write home about, but a lot higher than blue-state ‘models’ — such as Hawaii, Maryland, and Minnesota — and the statistics cited by NCAE. Mississippi, the perennial laughing stock of the education ‘numerati,’ is 12th.”

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