A Letter to Gov. McCrory

Dear Governor McCrory,
I am a retired teacher in McDowell County. I retired from teaching the sixth grade at Pleasant Gardens Elementary School after 31 years.  I currently serve as co-coordinator of the North Carolina Geographic Alliance, a position that allows me to stay in touch with teachers and spend some time volunteering in schools each year.

I totally disagree with your proposed budget that threatens to cut elementary teacher assistants. Teacher assistants are  such an integral part of early elementary classrooms.  They engage with students in reading, math and other subjects, assisting in instruction.  They perform clerical tasks and assist the classroom teacher with a myriad of other tasks. They  are the second set of eyes and ears in the classroom, helping students, reading with students, and being another adult figure for the students.

I strongly urge you to restore funding of teacher assistants in our early elementary classrooms.  Over the past several years, public education has been cut by state budgets. Proposals by you and our legislature only exacerbate the problem by further cuts and weakening the public schools.  In the past, North Carolina has been an excellent state for education with a very good climate for educators.  The gains of the past are eroding away. We are almost at the bottom in teacher pay, and now your budget will remove the asset of teacher assistants from the classroom. You will be putting many teacher assistants out of work.

North Carolina has had several "education governors" - governors who put public schools first and sought to improve K-12 education equitably across the state.  Your proposed budget and the policies and laws proposed by the current legislature will leave you as being remembered as the "non-education governor."