Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

In 2014 Ron and his colleagues in the General Assembly worked to give our state's teachers a long overdue pay raise. Reimbursing those educators of North Carolina's next generation was and continues to be a top priority of his. In fact, state funding for education has increased every year since Republicans regained control of the legislature in 2010. Our state's teachers deserve access to every tool available in fostering the talent and potential of our future leaders, and Ron is thoroughly committed to that end.

Ron believes that returning North Carolina's education system to its former state of preeminence involves the following ideas:

* Current education system results are the result of the current process. Since the results are not meeting expectations, the process has to be evaluated and fixed accordingly. It's like the old adage about continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different outcome.
* Standards need to be raised to the levels of excellence that meet realistic needs and then adhered to. Lowering standards simply makes the situation worse. There should be no need for our universities and community colleges to have to spend valuable resources on remedial training in math and English on such large numbers of students. That's the job of the K-12 part of the system.
* Discipline must be returned to the classroom and educator's given the tools to enforce it.
* We must stay on our current course of making teacher pay fair and competitive. This includes longevity, Master's Degree compensation, administrator pay, etc.
* Competition on a fair and level playing field brings out the best in the competitors. Public schools should relish the competition with charter schools to prove they are the better alternative and vice versa. The same is true regarding private, faith-based and home schools. This competition gives families a choice and they will do what is best for them and their children.
* There is no way that the Governor can be held responsible for educational outcomes when the State Superintendent of Public Instruction is not obligated to adhere to the Governor's policies, as is the case now in North Carolina. This process "glitch" must be fixed either by amending the NC Constitution or creating a new Department of Education with the responsibility of fixing our education issues.

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