Thousands of educators, parents, and children from across North Carolina crowded into Raleigh’s Halifax Mall on Friday to call for more investment in public education.
With the General Assembly’s sleek mid-century building behind her, Tamika Walker Kelly, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, encouraged the crowd to repeat 943—the number of the Senate bill that represents the rally’s central message: “Kids Over Corporations.”
The bill, put forward by a group of Democratic lawmakers, would set the corporate tax rate at 5%, rather than following the phase-out plan in current law. It doesn’t commit funds to public education, but rather underscores that “sustained investment in public education and workforce development is essential to the State’s economic competitiveness.” Kelly said she expected the legislation could raise $3 billion more a year for schools.
Teachers in the crowd reflected on needing to ask parents to supply toilet paper, pencils, and erasers. Resources for the kinds of activities that help students develop critical thinking and perseverance, such as hands-on science, technology, engineering, and math projects, are often not within school budgets, they said.
“The things that kids love are what we bring into the classroom; it’s not funded by the state,” said Julia Griffith, a fourth-grade teacher at Carpenter Elementary School in Cary.
“Just equipping them with a computer is not enough,” said Ariana Harding, another Carpenter teacher.
In some districts, even a computer is out of reach. Wake County schools benefit from a relatively large contribution of local tax funds. But the state’s rural counties struggle to supplement state education funding to the same degree. North Carolina’s funding effort—the amount it spends on education compared to its GDP—is among the lowest in the country.
Jackie McLean, a dropout prevention specialist in Hoke County, one of North Carolina’s low-wealth counties, showed up Friday in a shirt that said, “I am Leandro.”
She was among the plaintiffs in a long-running lawsuit that tested the state’s constitutional guarantee of a “sound basic education.” After more than three decades winding through the court system, the case was dismissed on procedural grounds in early April, with no relief for any of the five low-wealth districts that brought the suit.
McLean has said that the students she now serves are in “even far more dire straits” than the children originally named in the lawsuit.
But surrounded by educators dressed in red on Friday, she felt hopeful. McLean said she had found that the Leandro lawsuit’s dismissal had helped open the eyes of some people in her community. “When that money’s not coming, it feels different,” she said.
Hoke was among more than 20 districts in the state that canceled classes due to the rally, and McLean expected to see dozens of others from her district at the event.
Regan Shaw, a parent from Union County, approached her saying, “I feel like I’m meeting a celebrity!” She invited McLean to come speak in her part of the state.
The General Assembly was not voting Friday. But in advance of the event, which included a march through downtown Raleigh, the legislature’s Republican leaders discounted the idea that it would impact their work.
House Speaker Destin Hall and Senate leader Phil Berger told The News & Observer they were already working to raise teacher salaries.
“I think everybody’s in agreement that to the extent that we have the capacity, we need to work on paying teachers more and funding education at a higher level,” said Berger. Due to an impasse between the chambers over passing a comprehensive state budget, many teachers’ pay fell this school year, putting North Carolina near the bottom of national rankings.
Out on Halifax Mall, leaders from NCAE, the union for public school employees, touted recent membership growth. A majority of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County’s school employees are now union members, said NCAE Vice President Bryan Proffitt. NCAE also has majorities in Asheville, Durham, and Edgecombe county public schools.
“They have tricked us for far too long into believing we can’t build unions,” Proffitt said, gesturing toward the General Assembly. While North Carolina law bans collective bargaining for public workers, unions can still apply pressure for better pay and benefits. The Durham Association of Educators, for example, recently secured a “meet and confer” policy that allows the union to formally weigh in on policies and budget. And among NCAE’s demands at the rally was repealing the collective bargaining ban.
“Some of our conservative schools in conservative areas with conservative workers are at majority,” said Jenny Easter, president of Forsyth County Association of Educators. “If we can do it in Forsyth County, so can the rest of North Carolina.”
The rapper Petey Pablo closed out the event, adapting his popular state anthem. The lyrics “North Carolina, raise up!” became “Kids over corporations, raise up!” Teachers waved shirts over their heads with abandon, as a red balloon floated up into the cloudy sky.
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