We can Spend our money Wiser and save a Billion off the Top
Approximately 57% of the money we pay in state taxes supports education in North Carolina. When we evaluate State, federal and local funding across the state, allocation per student break out like this:
K-12 students cost us about $8,000/year each.
Community college students cost us about $5,000 each.
College students cost us about $11,000-12,000 each, plust the capital costs we also spend from our taxes to pay for college campus buildings and capital improvements.
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Education Issues I believe are Important that will make our Investments more Worthwhile:
1. Teachers who are good at what they do deserve Merit pay. Tenure should not be the only measure for how long a teacher is considered an acceptable employee. Performance criteria should be based on teacher qualities and their success in the classroom.
2. Teachers who have acquired special skills such as our special needs teachers, scientists and mathematicians would leave the teaching community to seek better paying positions unless we comensate them in a reasonable fashion. These specialists need to be retained with differential pay. If we do not compensate the professionals who acquire special skills our students will not be able to have the opportunity to compete with students of other educational programs once graduated.
3. Initiate and/or revive vocational and technical training in the secondary schools so that our students who excel at crafts and industry are rewarded and educated and productive graduates with degree or certification status at the end of High School. Provide life studies training so that our wor-force students are qualified and productive citizens.
4. Scrap the ABC's and EOG system. The "No child left behind" mantra still leaves 30 percent of our children uneducated because we have been iomproperly directing our resources.
5. End the Cap on Charter schools.
6. Bring on the tax credits for students removed from the public systems. This will reduce the burdens on taxpayers for the costs of school buildings. Private schools and home schools can meet the needs of our students to be well educated in smaller settings with excellent resources. Then, public schools can devote more teacher time to the remaining students at lower costs. This initiative has been shown to SAVE as much as $30MILLION/year in tax dollars.
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