DURHAM -- North Carolina officials welcomed U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to the state Thursday. But it was not so much a federal visit that the state was after but federal cash.
The state is seeking a two-pronged infusion that would help retain thousands of teachers and boost student achievement. State leaders recently submitted an application for Race to the Top, a plan to offer $3.4 billion to states to improve classroom performance. And Gov. Bev Perdue and others have endorsed a $23 billion federal teacher bailout plan that could save several thousand teaching jobs in North Carolina and many more nationally.
Perdue has made clear the state wants a chunk of each. She emphasized the need again Thursday while appearing in Durham with Duncan.
The Education secretary said hundreds of thousands of teachers nationwide will be out of work by fall unless the federal government implements the bailout plan.
"I don't have a Plan B," Duncan said at Southern High School. "Plan B is children around this country getting hurt."
If approved this summer, the money would provide funding to many state, city and county school districts. In Durham, the money could save more than 100 teaching jobs. In Wake County, officials aren't sure whether teachers will be lost, but dozens of other school employees have been laid off, and class sizes could swell next year as other resources dwindle.
Duncan argued hard for the spending bill Thursday during a panel discussion with Perdue, U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge, and Minnie Forte-Brown, chairwoman of the Durham School Board. The bill hasn't sailed smoothly thus far. Some lawmakers have been reluctant to support another huge spending plan that will expand the federal deficit.
"I understand the budget pressures the state is facing, but we have the same budget pressure at the federal level too," said U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., in an e-mail statement. "This spending simply further delays the hard choices we need to make in local, state, and federal budgets."
Duncan acknowledged that the bailout is a short-term solution but argued that the program is preferable to the loss of so many more jobs.
"Our economy is starting to bounce back, slowly," he said. "The last thing we need is a couple [of] hundred thousand teachers on the unemployment rolls."
College to high school
Duncan spent several hours in Durham. He spoke first at a symposium sponsored by N.C. Central University that examined the future of historically black colleges and universities. Later, at Southern High School, he met with a group of students before the panel discussion.
Southern lost 13 teachers to county budget cuts last year and stands to lose that many more next year if no new funding comes through. Cuts are visible already. Students say the fate of everything from the marching band to the school's annual Senior Week are in jeopardy because of budget constraints. And favorite teachers have been lost.
Lenkeith Warren, an 18-year-old senior, enjoyed history last year because his teacher, Ashley Austin, made learning easy. Austin then lost her job.
"When she was gone, it impacted us all," Warren said. "Just because of the type of person she was and the fact that as a teacher, when she gave us information, it was clear and you made your grade."
The specter of job losses hovers over Durham these days, said Kristy Moore, president of the Durham Association of Educators.
"People are scared about jobs not coming through," she said. "Students are out June 10, and we have teachers who won't know then if they'll have a job next year."
Short-term solution
Bill McNeal, executive director of the N.C. Association of School Administrators, favors the teacher bailout, but he cautions that it won't solve a long-term problem.
"This is a stopgap until the economy turns around," he said. "When all of the federal dollars run out and the state's revenues haven't recovered, how do we cover that shortfall? It's a significant issue and the one on every administrator's mind."
The long-term fix isn't clear, he added.
State officials hope North Carolina's second entry into the Race to the Top sweepstakes will do better than its first. North Carolina was one of 40 states to submit applications during the first phase of the program, but only two states - Delaware and Tennessee - won grants then, splitting $600 million. The program offers large sums to states that come up with innovative education reform efforts.
North Carolina's second Race to the Top entry attempts in part to beef up school leadership across the state through the creation of a training academy for administrators, Perdue said.
"We understand we need to have good principal leaders," she said.
Staff writer Stanley B. Chambers Jr. contributed to this report.
