This column first appeared in CityView magazine’s “Back to School” August 2026 edition.
Back to school? Already? Didn’t summer vacation just start, maybe a week or two ago?
I finished high school 60 years ago, but that’s how I always felt. Still do. Summer vacation was short. School was long.
Even today, I’m startled to learn that the school buses will be back on the roads before the end of August.
When summers are this hot, of course, short is good. But vacation time? Short isn’t better.
Still, I really did enjoy school. It set me on the road to becoming a lifelong learner, curious about people and things, wanting to know things—the more esoteric the better. Hint: My favorite “sports” were archery and the debate team. That’s one big reason why I chose a career in journalism.
I was fortunate to have a good education at every level. Even more fortunate to get most of that education at excellent private schools with high, challenging standards. My parents were far from wealthy. We were a blue-collar family, lower middle class at most—my dad a steelworker, my mom a part-time secretary. There were no vouchers in those days, but they scraped tuition together anyway. Maybe it’s that memory that makes me believe it should still be that way, that vouchers are an unwarranted siphon of public funds for private purposes. I don’t know—there are compelling arguments on both sides.
But I am certain of this: Despite North Carolina lawmakers’ passion for school vouchers, they don’t have the same dedication to properly educating our children. Just a generation ago, public school funding and teacher salaries here were at the middle of the national pack, and among the best in the South. Support was universal—Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, Blue Dogs and Yellow Dogs.
Governors and legislators made education a big priority, correctly understanding that having a well-educated population was a key to success in a state where the traditional economic engines—agriculture and textiles—were waning and needed quality replacements. It’s that thinking that made the state university system one of the best in the country. It’s also the reason for the creation of the Research Triangle Park, which became a magnet for high-tech economic development and made the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill community thrive. That provided plenty of trickle-down success in surrounding communities. Our well-prepared workforce was the key.
Still is.
But for how much longer? Public funding for public education—required by our state constitution—hasn’t kept pace with our needs in the past two decades. We’ve got to look a long way up to see the middle of the pack again. We’ve been stuck with the bottom feeders.
For the past few years, I’ve often driven past a highway billboard near Greensboro that exhorts the state to “pay the teachers.” UNC basketball legend Roy Williams has joined the fight, and the sign now reads, “Pay the Dadgum Teachers!” We failed that.
North Carolina ranks 46th in teacher pay, according to the National Education Association. Teachers can make better money by moving to any of our surrounding states. They can double their salary by moving to California, where educator pay is the best, and get a big raise by moving to any of dozens of states.
The state budget that lawmakers finally passed this summer gives teachers an 8% raise, which is a nice boost. But I’m not sure it will do what some legislative leaders suggest—give North Carolina the best teacher pay in the South. It certainly won’t send us back to our former position in the midpoint of all American public education pay ranks. It’s a start, not a job completed.
No matter where our state stands in the national rankings of teacher pay and per-student education funding, we’ve still got daunting mountains to climb. Our competitors aren’t just other states. Our economy depends on having a workforce able to lead the world. We don’t just compete with Arkansas or Iowa—our real competition is spread over the world, and we need to raise generations of kids who can take on their global peers. We’ve got too much room for improvement. The most recent comparisons of educational achievement in the world’s industrialized nations puts American students 12th in science, 6th in reading, and a woeful 28th in math.
I’m happy to see North Carolina increasing funding for public education. I’m delighted teachers will see raises. I’m pleased to see our Cumberland County commissioners agree to meet our school system’s budget request.
But I’m still worried, and not just about North Carolina schools. I’m worried about American competitiveness in the world marketplace, worried that our education system is falling behind its global peers.
We need to keep talking about how we fund education, but we also need to expand that conversation to include academic rigor. Paying the dadgum teachers is just the beginning.
Tim White is the former editorial page editor of The Fayetteville Observer.
