Van Duyn: I’m appalled at N.C. Senate budget process

Here’s the press release from the Terry Van Duyn campaign:

We must support our public teachers and teaching assistants

RALEIGH, N.C. — At 12:30 a.m. Saturday morning the North Carolina Senate passed their version of the 2014 – 2015 budget. The 21.2 billion dollar budget eliminates funding for 7,400 teaching assistants for our 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms as well as adding further cuts to Medicaid. For these reasons, Senator Terry Van Duyn of Buncombe County voted against this budget.

“I am appalled at how quickly something as important as our State’s budget was pushed through the Senate. With just 48 hours of review, the N.C. Senate was forced to vote on the budget. A budget needs to be carefully studied, debated, and most of all shared with the public; unfortunately Senate leadership did not allow for the process to happen,”
said Senator Van Duyn.

“Removing teaching assistants is bad for students, especially in our 3rd grade classrooms where “Read to Achieve” has overburdened our teachers with testing.  After speaking with more and more local teachers, I’ve learned that testing is taking as much as 30% of their instruction time away from their students. Why would we handicap these children any further by taking away their teaching assistants.  Raising teacher pay is absolutely necessary, but not at the expense of our children,” said Senator Van Duyn.

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About Jake Frankel
Jake Frankel is an award-winning journalist who enjoys covering a wide range of topics, from politics and government to business, education and entertainment.

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