What North Carolina’s New Budget Means for Teachers Like Me

As an experienced science teacher in North Carolina, finding innovative, authentic resources to engage my students has never been easy. After all, math and English are the tested subjects, and school funding and professional development often follow the areas the public sees—and judges—first. The new state budget has made my job even harder.

On the surface, lawmakers say this budget improves educational outcomes for students. An EdNC headline announcing its passage highlights funding for “raises, literacy, and math.” But for teachers like me, the reality looks very different.

While my salary has increased by 5.4%, the cost of living has risen by more than 11%, meaning my purchasing power has continued to decline. Even more troubling, legislators have once again excluded teachers with 14 to 29 years of experience from any future salary increases, sending a clear message that experience—the very quality that research consistently links to improved student outcomes—is not a priority to be compensated. At the same time, resources I have relied on to teach effectively have been stripped away.

For the past 14 years, the North Carolina Office of Environmental Education has been one of those resources. It has provided professional learning, classroom lessons, innovative teaching strategies, and partnerships that have transformed both my teaching and my students’ learning.

When I was assigned to teach Environmental Science, I received the course—but no curriculum and few instructional resources. The Office of Environmental Education became my lifeboat. Through its workshops, field experiences, and network of experts, I gained the knowledge and confidence to make environmental science relevant, engaging, and authentic for my students.

Those experiences led to collaborations with educators, scientists, nonprofit organizations, and industry professionals. They opened doors to field trips, guest speakers, internships, summer employment opportunities, and career pathways that many of my students had never imagined. The environmental education practices I learned also inspired research projects, presentations at national conferences, professional credentials, and graduate studies that strengthened my effectiveness as a teacher.

The impact extended beyond my Environmental Science classes. I incorporated environmental education best practices into Physical Science, where my students demonstrated higher achievement. I documented those results in a research study, Using Environmental Education Best Practices to Teach Physical Science, and shared the findings with educators at the National Science Teaching Association Conference so other teachers could make science learning more meaningful for their students.

The Office of Environmental Education has also strengthened North Carolina’s national reputation as a leader in environmental literacy. Educators from other states have pursued North Carolina’s Environmental Educator Certification to build their own teaching capacity. By investing in teachers, our state has extended its influence well beyond its borders while enriching learning experiences for students here at home.

Although the Office provides its resources free of charge, I chose to invest $50 of my own money 14 years ago to earn my Environmental Educator credential. That modest investment has paid dividends for more than 2,500 students who have benefited from the knowledge, experiences, partnerships, and opportunities the Office made possible. Few public investments can claim that kind of return.

Yet the new state budget effectively eliminates the Office of Environmental Education. It also gives experienced teachers a raise that fails to keep pace with inflation, followed by a decade with no additional salary increases for educators with 14 to 29 years of experience.

North Carolina cannot expect to improve student outcomes while simultaneously disinvesting in the teachers and programs that make those outcomes possible. At a time when our state should be preparing students for an increasingly complex economy and the environmental challenges of the future, we are instead dismantling one of our most effective and affordable educational resources.

North Carolina can—and must—do better. We should invest in the teachers who stay, the programs that work, and the students whose futures depend on both.