Proposed Senate Budget Boosts Salaries For Teachers Without Tenure, Cuts Teaching Assistants

WUNC | By Jessica Jones,

Published May 29, 2014 at 4:41 PM EDT

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Dave DeWitt

State lawmakers in the Senate have released their budget plan, which includes the finer details of how they would pay for an 11 percent salary increase for teachers who agree to forego tenure protections. But Senate budget writers would take about $390 million out of k-12 funding. That would cut the money for teacher assistants by nearly half.

Republican Sen. Jerry Tillman says the state would keep teacher assistants for kindergarten and first grades – but get rid of about 7400 assistants in second and third grades.

"Research shows that in k-1 they’re an integral part, it’s a lot more cloudy on what good that they do as far as leading to instructional gains other than K-1," says Tillman.

Teacher assistants are just one bullet point in a long list of cuts in the proposed budget. The Department of Public Instruction would be cut by 30 percent.

Senate leaders also want to move the State Bureau of Investigations over to the Department of Public Safety. The Senate is expected to vote on their budget proposal by this weekend.

Politics NC General Assembly

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Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones covers both the legislature in Raleigh and politics across the state. Before her current assignment, Jessica was given the responsibility to open up WUNC's first Greensboro Bureau at the Triad Stage in 2009. She's a seasoned public radio reporter who's covered everything from education to immigration, and she's a regular contributor to NPR's news programs. Jessica started her career in journalism in Egypt, where she freelanced for international print and radio outlets. After stints in Washington, D.C. with Voice of America and NPR, Jessica joined the staff of WUNC in 1999. She is a graduate of Yale University.

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Reema Khrais

Reema Khrais joined WUNC in 2013 to cover education in pre-kindergarten through high school. Previously, she won the prestigious Joan B. Kroc Fellowship. For the fellowship, she spent a year at NPR where she reported nationally, produced on Weekends on All Things Considered and edited on the digital desk. She also spent some time at New York Public Radio as an education reporter, covering the overhaul of vocational schools, the contentious closures of city schools and age-old high school rivalries.

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