Teachers seeking raises, resources take to the streets
RALEIGH, N.C. — Thousands of teachers filled the streets of North Carolina’s capital Wednesday demanding better pay and more funding for public schools, continuing the trend of educators around the country rising up to pressure lawmakers for change.
City blocks turned red, the color of shirts worn by the marchers, who carried signs and chanted “We care! We vote!” and “This is What Democracy Looks Like!” An estimated 19,000 people joined the march, according to the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, which drew from aerial photos.
“I feel the current politicians in charge of the state are antipublic education,” Raleigh high school teacher Bill Notarnicola said as he prepared a time-lapse photo of the march. “The funds are not keeping up with the growth. We are seeing cutback, after cutback, after cutback.”
Many teachers entered the Legislative Building, continuing to chant as the Republican-controlled legislature held short floor meetings to start its annual work session. Most teachers quieted down when asked, but a woman who yelled, “Education is a Right: That is why we have to fight,” was among four escorted from the Senate gallery. No arrests were made.
Previous strikes, walkouts and protests in West Virginia, Arizona, Kentucky, Colorado and Oklahoma have led legislators in each state to improve pay, benefits or overall school funding.
The march Wednesday in North Carolina prompted three-dozen school districts that educate more than twothirds of the state’s 1.5 million public school students to cancel class.
Rachel Holdridge, a special education teacher at Wilmington’s Alderman Elementary School with 22 years’ experience, said she drives for Uber to make ends meet. She said lawmakers have let teachers down by failing to equip them properly to do their jobs.
“They keep giving tiny raises and taking so much away from the kids,” said Holdridge, who came to the Legislative Building ahead of the march to lobby legislators. While she took a sober view of whether the rally would change policy, she said: “You’ve got to start somewhere.”
The state’s main teacher advocacy group, the North Carolina Association of Educators, demands legislators increase per-pupil spending to the national average in four years, increase school construction for a growing state, and approve a multiyear pay raise for teachers and school support staff to bring incomes to the national average.
The teachers’ group favors a proposal by the state’s Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to raise salaries by stopping planned tax cuts on corporations and high-income households.