A jarring new NC teacher protest could be a turning point for public schools | Opinion

The sight of poor people standing on busy street corners holding hand-drawn cardboard signs asking for money is as familiar as it is sad.

But it was new and jarring on Wednesday to see public school teachers take up the role of street corner pleaders.

About 700 teachers took to the streets in four counties — Wake, New Hanover, Mecklenburg and Gaston — to draw public attention to their paltry pay and underfunded school services. It was the first of a series of demonstrations to be held on the seventh of each month by a loosely formed but growing group called Teachers Take Action.

These teachers are not destitute, but their presence represents a broader poverty – the deprivation of North Carolina’s public schools.

For more than a decade, the Republican-controlled General Assembly has neglected to pay teachers what they deserve or even what they need.

North Carolina currently ranks 43rd nationally in average teacher pay. An analysis by the Education Law Center ranked North Carolina last in overall school funding. The result has been an exodus of experienced teachers, deteriorating school buildings, a severe shortage of school nurses and counselors, and many thousands of children shortchanged on their education and their prospects.

Last October, a viral social media post called on teachers to walk out to protest their pay and school conditions. The appeal drew more voices.

Then Jennilee Lloyd, a Wake County elementary school teacher, stepped in to give form to the voices. A Facebook page was set up. A date for the walkout was set. And on Wednesday, teachers representing 52 schools took to the street corners. By Wednesday, the Facebook page had drawn 3,500 members.

“It has been amazing, very surreal, to start something like this and see it take off,” Lloyd told me Wednesday.

She had stood with teachers at the corner of High House Road and Davis Dive in Cary. Her group counted 250 honks of support, though there also were a few shows of disfavor.

The teachers have been careful not to be disruptive. They took personal time off and most of their classes were covered by substitutes. They want to draw public support, not anger.

But they also are tired of waiting. Thousands of teachers protested at the Legislative Building in 2018 and 2019 with no results. The state Supreme Court still has not ruled in the Leandro case that would require the state to provide a surge in school funding. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers have approved hundreds of millions of dollars for private school vouchers and billions of dollars in tax cuts.

“Too many educators are at that point where we have to change something now, or public education in North Carolina is pretty much on its deathbed. It’s not going to make it,” Lloyd said.

To sustain public schools, teachers need to educate the public. The spectacle of teachers standing on the roadside once a month may help. Less dramatic steps haven’t done much. State lawmakers who fail to support public schools keep getting elected, albeit with the help of gerrymandering.

State Rep. Cynthia Ball, a Wake County Democrat and a member of the House Education K-12 Committee, said of the latest teacher protest, “It’s difficult to think this is going to change the minds of those in the majority to do something.”

Voters could force change by voting for candidates who will support public schools, but so far that hasn’t happened.

“I have asked myself many times: ‘When are the people in our state going to wake up to what has been happening in our state for so many years?,’ Ball said, “I don’t know why the people of North Carolina don’t do something about it.”

Maybe now they will. The North Carolina Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is supportive of the protests by Teachers Take Action. The PTA and the advocacy group Public Schools First NC plan to hold demonstrations at the Legislative Building on one Wednesday a month through April. The first event in “wEDnesdays For Public School” will be held from 11 a.m to 1 p.m on Jan. 14.

“Parents and community members do need to align with the movement that public education is in crisis,” said Shaneeka Moore-Lawrence, president of the state PTA. “To alleviate it, that starts with money.”

Moore-Lawrence is encouraged that teachers are taking it to the streets and parents are taking it to the legislature. She said, “I just hope we take this moment and make it a movement.”

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@newsobserver.com

This story was originally published January 8, 2026 at 9:59 AM.