RALEIGH, N.C. –  First, thousands protest in Arizona and Colorado.

Now, through pouring rain and scorching heat, crowds of students and teachers — more than 30,000, according to one estimate — marched to North Carolina’s state capital in Raleigh for the “March for Students and Rally for Respect,” fighting what they’ve called unfair pay and inadequate learning environments in schools across the state. 

“You never retire, and you’re always caring,” said Judy Justice, a retired teacher. “Look at these thousands of people. It’s hot out here, and a lot of us aren’t young and this isn’t easy. Some of us have been here since eight this morning.” 

She says they are all doing it for the kids. 

“It started in 2010 when they started cutting teacher aides, and then they have cut supplies,” Justice said. “We haven’t had books since 2010-2011. Kids are suffering. Teachers have to send out supply lists every year so kids can have Kleenex and things like paper towels by the end of the year.” 

“For us it is personal. Together we say enough is enough,” said Mark Jewell, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE). 

City Commissioner Del Mims walked among the sea of red T-shirts carrying a sign saying, “Teachers, Students, Schools.” She says she attended the march today to support teachers. 

“We want teachers to be well-paid, and most importantly, we want our students to have the freedom to learn in the proper environment,” Mims said. 

In a Tuesday press conference, lawmakers said the average teacher pay will grow to $53,000, not including local supplements or bonuses, an increase from the current average salary of $49,000, according to a study by the National Center for Education Statistics. 

“We are doing something important, we are not raising taxes to do this,” said Speaker of the House Tim Moore. 

Republican legislators say state House and Senate budget leaders officially have committed to at least a 6.2 percent increase in teachers’ salaries in the coming fiscal year. 

“This commitment marks the fifth year that we have increased teacher pay,” Moore said. “Teachers will have received an average pay raise of $8,600.” 

Moore says more than 40,000 of the state’s teachers and nearly half of all public school teachers will have received at least a $10,000 pay raise on an annual basis. 

“Last year we were the number one state in the country for increasing teacher pay,” he said. 

But according to NEA, the national average starting teacher salary is $38,617. 

“Thirty-seventh in the country for teacher pay is unacceptable,” Governor Roy Cooper said to the roaring crowd as they chanted, “Teachers united, we’ll never be divided.”

“We know this is more than about teacher pay. It’s about respect. It’s personal,” Cooper said. 

“There became this kind of climate where folks really felt like teachers are being disrespected, schools are being disrespected,” said Michael Maher, assistant dean for professional education at North Carolina State University. “And that kind of came on the heels of the recession, and if you follow what happened in North Carolina, we were hit pretty hard by the recession.” 

A majority of states across the country cut school funding after the recession of 2008 hit. It took many years for states to restore their funding. 

He says if coupled with what has happened more recently, in terms of more money being available, those raises disproportionately have been pushed toward beginning teachers. 

“I think what has happened to some degree is you have veteran teachers really feeling disrespected over what has happened in 2013 to today,” Maher said. 

While many teachers argue they are advocates for equal pay for both veteran as well as new teachers, their focus is not specifically on pay raises. 

They have a list of issues they would like addressed ranging from support for public education to provisions of adequate school supplies for students. 

All of the 2016-17 state expenditures for public schools were attributed to salaries and benefits except for nearly six percent, according to the February public school budget from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction Highlights.

Many teachers argued lawmakers should be investing in digital learning, counseling for students and better infrastructure, among other issues. 

“We do fund textbooks … it’s not only textbooks now, but we are moving to a lot of digital-based learning,” Moore said. “You are seeing more money being spent on digital as opposed to the traditional textbooks.” 

“Remember we haven’t started the session yet, so what the budget is going to look like will materialize as we move forward,” said State Senator Phil Berger. 

Moore says he appreciates what state employees are doing and expects they will get some kind of a raise, “but I’ll have to come back on a later date to get the numbers on that.” 

Both legislators say they already have made progress during the beginning of the session by making agreements on taxes and pay raises, but say there are still things that need to be worked on.

 

 

At least one school district in Pennsylvania will receive some relief for its taxpayers after a teachers union agreed to cover all future costs associated with the controversial “ghost teacher” practice.

The Reading Education Association, the union at the center of the controversy, has agreed to a memorandum of understanding with Reading School District to reimburse the school district for all future costs. It did not, however, agree to repay nearly $600,000 in salary and benefits accrued by the union’s presidents since 2011.

Fox News reported on the original lawsuit, which was filed by Americans for Fair Treatment, a nonprofit public employee watchdog group, in 2017. The Fairness Center, a nonprofit law firm which primarily focuses on public employee unions, assisted in the litigation.

The Fairness Center focused on the cost of the salary and benefits accrued by the former REA presidents, which totaled $583,213 from 2011 to 2016. Going forward, the union will be made to pay the district for those costs until the current collective bargaining agreement expires.

“I think the major point here is that while things have gotten better for the kids in Reading, this is a statewide problem and this going to take a statewide solution.”

- David Osborne

“They’ve negotiated for certain privileges, and that’s what this is,” David Osborne, president and general counsel for the Fairness Center, said. “This is a privilege for one or more people to leave their full-time job and go work for the union full time.”

The problem with the decision in Reading is that the memorandum of understanding doesn’t set a legal precedent that would be binding for other districts.

“I think the major point here is that while things have gotten better for the kids in Reading, this is a statewide problem and this going to take a statewide solution,” Osborne said.

“I think it puts them on a level playing field.”

- Patrick Stefano

This controversial arrangement is allowed through collective bargaining under current Pennsylvania state law; it’s a practice that Republican State Sen. Patrick Stefano hopes to end through legislation. He currently has a bill on the Senate floor that would bar the practice of school districts shouldering the costs of teachers who take “full-time union leave.”

“I think it puts them on a level playing field,” Stefano said. “They can’t keep getting their workers at the taxpayers' costs. It’s a double cost for a school district. … Those are tax dollars out the door without any educational benefit.

"When resources are already strained, it just makes a bad situation worse.”

The bill would still allow for teachers to be granted paid time off to vote over union functions, attend conferences or lobby state lawmakers. The threshold for full-time union work would be defined as more than three consecutive days in a week or 30 days in a school year.

In an emailed statement, Rebecca Titus, president of the REA, said she’s pleased the lawsuit is being discontinued so “we may focus our efforts on educating the students of Reading.”

Reading, long-maligned as economically depressed, has had its share of education problems. A 2016 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment study found that the town ranked 494 out of 500 districts in math proficiency, and No. 493 in reading proficiency. These numbers follow students into high school, where only 65 percent graduated in 2016.

Those rates are stark when compared with the statewide graduation rate of 89 percent.

 

He told me dessert was next.

Tae Kwon Do Grandmaster Jhoon Rhee had invited me to his house in suburban Virginia for brunch several years ago. We dined on traditional Korean fare. Seaweed. Kimchi. Fish.

And then Rhee emerged from the kitchen with two curved pieces of tin foil, speared by toothpicks: frozen, peeled bananas.

The bananas weren’t dusted with powdered sugar or drizzled with a chocolate glaze.

No. Just frozen bananas. The fact that the bananas were frozen is what made them dessert.

Jhoon Rhee proclaimed he wanted to live to be 136. And you may have a shot if all you ever eat for dessert are frozen bananas.

Jhoon Rhee died this week in Washington at age 86 after complications from shingles. But Rhee’s legacy on Capitol Hill may well surpass the 136-year mark.

Anyone who spent time in Washington during the 1970s and ‘80s knew Rhee from his iconic TV commercials. They starred his daughter, Meme, and son, Chun, who were barely school-age. They advertised a chain of martial arts studios around the Washington region.

“Nobody bothers me!” a youthful Meme would shout, staring into the camera.

“Nobody bothers me, either!” proclaimed Chun with a wink.

The TV spots generated lots of attention. But Rhee himself had a cultlike following among hundreds of Members of Congress. For nearly five decades, lawmakers from both parties and from the House and Senate rose before dawn, three days a week for a pilgrimage to the only true non-partisan venue on Capitol Hill: The House gym in the basement of the Rayburn House Office Building. That’s where Rhee would train Members of Congress in the “art of the hand and the foot,” the Korean martial arts discipline of Tae Kwon Do.

“If I wanted to do this for publicity, I would do this for four years. Not 45 years,” Rhee said in a 2010 interview with Fox.

The list of Rhee’s nearly 400 congressional students are legion. Former Vice President Biden. Former House Speakers Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and the late speaker Tom Foley (D-Wash.). Current Reps. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.). Former Reps. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.), and Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), to name but a few.

Lawmakers maintain insane schedules. They’re often quadruple booked between hearings, constituent meetings, speaking engagements and floor votes. Fundraisers consume the evening hours. There are often breakfast meetings, too. So the only time available to work out is before dawn.

“When they are healthy and more alert, they can do their job better,” Rhee said of instructing Members of Congress martial arts.

During Rhee’s sessions, lawmakers would learn various styles of kicks and punches, blocks, defensive postures and stances. Lawmakers would also study “forms,” elaborate sequences of all the above moves, executed with choreographic precision.

Rhee’s connection with Capitol Hill started in 1965. An item appeared in the newspaper about how someone mugged the late-Rep. James Cleveland (R-N.H.) as he walked near the Capitol. Rhee called Cleveland, telling him he wouldn’t have to worry about muggings if he studied Tae Kwon Do. The congressman invited Rhee to his office for a demonstration.

Cleveland didn’t study with Rhee for long. But Rhee saw the potential for spreading his knowledge among some of the most powerful people in the country. It’s hard these days to find a strip mall without a Tae Kwon Do or Karate studio as a tenant. But that wasn’t the case when Rhee first came to the U.S. in 1956.

“I fought the Korean war side by side American soldiers who came to defend my motherland,” Rhee told Fox in 2010. “That touched me. I wanted to pay back with what I do best: Tae Kwon Do.”

Rhee quickly organized a congressional Tae Kwon Do Club. 

Rhee stood but 5’6” and weighed around 140 pounds. But those numbers belie Rhee’s powerful physique. Rhee’s chest exploded from broad shoulders. Rhee was a physical specimen well into his eighties, trained through daily discipline and diet.

Rhee would get up each morning to do 400 push-ups and 1,000 sit-ups. He would splay his legs into a “V,” pushing his chest forward to the floor.

Lawmakers and former students came to the Cannon Caucus Room several years ago to help Rhee celebrate his 80^th birthday. But this was no ordinary birthday party with cake and candles (or frozen bananas). This was an opportunity for Rhee to demonstrate his physical prowess.

“If I wanted to do this for publicity, I would do this for four years. Not 45 years.”

- Jhoon Rhee in 2010

Rhee squatted on the floor and promptly shot through a routine of 103 pushups in just one minute. Rhee then rose to break a set of boards with his right foot while standing on his left foot. A glass of water rested on Rhee’s head.

“If I can balance the water, Congress might balance the budget,” said Rhee at the ceremony.

Many martial arts historians credit Rhee and Bruce Lee as helping to popularize martial arts in the U.S. Rhee always noted that Lee helped him with his punches. Rhee returned the favor by helping Lee with his kicking.

The American public learned of Lee through TV and movies. Lee was “Hollywood.” He starred as “Cato” in the Green Hornet spinoff to the popular Batman series. Lee taught Hollywood stars martial arts as well as basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Tae Kwon Do. But Lee died in 1973 at the age of 32 just after filming “Enter the Dragon.” It was the first martial arts film released by a major movie studio. But Jhoon Rhee was “Washington.” Sure he trained with Chuck Norris, Muhammad Ali and Tony Robbins. But he most likely had the biggest impact on Members of Congress.

At his 80^th birthday celebration on Capitol Hill, Rhee promised to hold another blow-out there when he turned 100. But in many respects, the best celebrations of Rhee and Tae Kwon Do happened three days a week, before dawn, in the basement of the Rayburn House Office Building.

 

 

A six-day teacher strike in Arizona that left millions of students out of public school ended Thursday after Gov. Doug Ducey approved a raise for the educators.

Arizona Educators United, organizers of the strike, called an end to the walkout on Twitter hours after Ducey signed a plan that'll give teachers an overall 20 percent raise over four years.

Teachers were awarded a 9 percent raise for the fall and 5 percent in each of the next two years — increases that come in addition to a 1 percent raise granted last year.

Ducey said the teachers had earned a raise and praised the legislation as “a real win” for both teachers and students. The pay increases will cost about $300 million for the coming year.

Budget cuts over the past decade have deeply cut into Arizona's public schools. Teachers wanted a return to pre-recession funding levels, regular raises, competitive pay for support staff and a pledge not to adopt any tax cuts until per-pupil funding reaches the national average.

Arizona Education Association President Joe Thomas, an organizer of the strike, said that the teachers' demands were largedly ignored by Ducey and the Republican-controlled Legislature.

"The budget is a significant investment, but it falls far short" of what the movement demanded, Thomas said. He added educators will "remember that in the upcoming election."

The Phoenix suburb of Mesa, Arizona's largest district, and districts in the suburbs of Scottsdale and Glendale, planned to reopen Friday. Officials from Tucson’s biggest school district said they were working to reopen 86 school sites on Monday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.