Teachers in North Carolina staged a walk out yesterday to protest the poor pay they have been receiving, in what has become a nationwide problem in America. Teachers have also had no choice but to pay for some school supplies out of pocket, in order to properly teach students in their classrooms. These costs on average total $2,000 per teacher, which is difficult considering their pay is already relatively low.

Teachers do deserve a pay increase. This is a part of the reason I was not in favor of the massive tax cuts in America, which I wrote about last year (Tax Cuts For The Rich In America Is A Bad Idea At This Time). The money is needed to pay for schools, police, infrastructure, small business grants, the poor and disabled. The sad part is most of the corporations that received the $1.5 trillion in tax breaks did not hire new people and hoarded money instead (with the exception of Apple, who have pledge to create 50,000 new jobs, which is commendable).

The government needs to digitize schools more to cut down on costs. For example, over time, students having tablets and digital download of books would save millions of dollars. Tablets bought in bulk and digital books on low price licenses, would provide huge savings and done in the right way, will accelerate learning. Interactive programs and digital books means less load in student's backpacks and easier access to information.

STORY SOURCE

North Carolina Teachers Walk Out

Joining a movement that has taken hold across the country, the Tar Heel State’s teachers strike for better pay and more school spending.

By Seth Cline, Staff Writer May 16, 2018, at 6:29 p.m. -  RALEIGH, N.C. — The initial plans called for a rally of around 500 people. Instead, at least 20,000 people showed up to protest teaching conditions on a muggy day in downtown Raleigh on Wednesday, the latest of a surge of teacher activism that has swept the country this spring.

More than 40 school districts across North Carolina cancelled classes for the rally – giving a million-plus students the day off from class – after the number of participating teachers oustripped the supply of substitutes. Wednesday's rally in Raleigh makes it six states that have seen teachers protest their compensation en masse in recent weeks. And all of those states – Arizona, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Kentucky, Colorado and now North Carolina rank poorly on teacher compensation measures, which are set by their legislatures instead of local school boards, says Mike Hansen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

"Strikes happen all the time but typically those don't grab national headlines because they happen at a local level, as say this school board negotiates with that union," Hansen says. "What's different here is the scale is remarkable and everybody's descending on a state capitols rather than advocating at local school board offices."...

https://www.usnews.com