North Carolina Teachers March on the Capital

Educators dressed in red congregated on the Capitol building steps to demand better salaries and school funding. While similar demonstrations have already occurred in nearly half a dozen other states throughout the last few months, teachers in North Carolina took their chance to be heard on Wednesday, May 16th in Raleigh.

Upwards of three dozen school districts closed due to a major deficit in staffing per the occasion. Their cause for uproar, however, is largely based in the fact that the salary of the average US teacher is currently almost $10,000 more than that of the average teacher in the Tar Heel State in accordance with the National Center for Education Statistics.

The rally was organized by the North Carolina Association of Educators, the state’s largest teacher advocacy group. Their agenda consists of raising public school funding to match that of the national average, a call for more health workers and counselors, better pay for school employees, and no more corporate tax cuts until spending per-student and educator salaries meet the national average.

Seamus Kenney, a middle-school band and chorus teacher, commented to NPR’s Ari Shapiro at the event, “I’m not asking for everything all at once, but I do want to look down the road and feel that I’m progressing towards a better life.”