Carolina Journal Radio No. 918: New index tracks COVID-related ‘misery’

From chair to current attack and the largest city in the statehouse into the schoolhouse Carolina Journal radio your weekly news magazine discussing North Carolina's most of public-policy events and issues welcome to Carolina Journal radio I Michiko got during the next hour, Donna Martinez and I will explore some major issues affecting our state governor Roy Cooper continues to push for Medicaid expansion in North Carolina, but some state lawmakers want the governor's new health coverage commission to consider other ideas you'll hear their comments brush off his reelection when US Sen. Tom Tillis was back on Capitol Hill questioning the leaders of big tech companies. You'll hear highlights some North Carolina legislators have concerns about proposed law enforcement reforms you learn why they're not interested in tackling the controversial ideas in 2021, and will discuss some good news it's tied to North Carolina's latest public school teacher turnover report. Those topics are just ahead. First, Donna Martinez joins us with the Carolina Journal headline pointing North Carolina into a balance between public health and economic health.

During this covert, 19 pandemic that has been a goal of John Locke foundation researchers for the better part of 2020. Joe Colletti is one of those researchers. He is a senior fellow here at the John Locke foundation and he has created a new index to try to provide some more context for us as we work our way through covert 19 joke joints.

We now welcome back to the shelf grow to be her first about governor Roy Cooper in this issue of balancing public health which we obviously are in a situation where will where we have a public health crisis, but also people's ability and right to earn a living, etc. the governor doesn't really talk about that hardly ever at his news conference is what you make of that.

That is, the question that we've all been asking since since all this started at the start of it made sense that public health is the first priority. With everything with a new pandemic with all the lack of information that that that that nobody knew what was coming or how bad it was going to be. But as we gotten through this, especially after the first two months when we could start opening the economy and in other states were moving further in that direction. We started so the question will there is the other cost of the all of this. There's the cost of lost jobs and with the lost jobs, comes the lack of treatment for other healthcare needs food because we we closed hospitals to elective surgeries and people have avoided doctors and and so for Gov. Cooper to continue only having many: the head of the department of Health and Human Services and not have somebody there from the Department of commerce not have somebody from the economic development partnership of North Carolina not have somebody taking a look at any of the other aspects of what's going on.

That does raise questions as to where the S2 is he taking a look at this in the proper way the same way that the rest of North Carolina and the rest of the country is that despite the fact that Gov. Cooper and his administration don't seem to be focusing on that balance, at least not publicly. The John Locke foundation has been committed to doing that very much for months and months now in jail you have been a key member of that team. The latest contacts that you have been providing to North Carolina is an index you've created and you call it the covert, 19 misery index so it starts out with a negative connotation, but help us understand what you were trying to illustrate through your misery index to the point of the balance between what's going on with the disease and what's going on with the economy as as a proxy for everything else because we can't North Carolina's days only reporting doubts is it is far behind in reporting excess debts we can't see what's going on on the outside but in hospitalizations, all the other things you can't tell what's going on so debts are is the easiest thing to be able to measure in the most accurate thing to be able to measure and comparing that with jobs that have been lost, not the unemployment rate but the number of jobs is we don't know who's fallen out of the labor force but comparing February to the current rate and taking a look at the lives that are lost because that's that's a terrible thing in taking a look at the jobs that are lost.

The economic opportunity that's lost because that's a terrible thing and then in the 1970s, back when inflation when we have stagflation we had the misery index there that looked at inflation plus unemployment and that seemed to be a good comparison here because normally we talk about inflation versus unemployment and if you have been and so if you combine what's out happening with dots and the lives of the loss in the jobs at a loss. That gives you an indication of how bad the state is doing what you find for North Carolina. North Carolina is about in the middle has improved. Actually, over time, since over time because her job picture has improved and were doing better than the number of other states in the South were about the same overall as Tennessee, Tennessee's balance actually skews a bit more to saving jobs and losing lives in North Carolina skews a bit more towards saving lives and losing jobs to the terminology here. I'm still working on but that's we skew a bit more that we lost more jobs than than Tennessee. They lost more lives in North Carolina but outside of that in the way that I've done this a big balance out about the second and Joe, you said something like that.

The terminology is difficult. I think it's important that we let our listeners know that your intent here is not to say oh gee I wish we had had more deaths and fewer job losses you're not making any sort of judgment like that. Just trying to illustrate that here. These two really bad things that are happening and we need to understand exactly where we are with each right then and so for North Carolina for the job on the job side jobs is about 10 times more per million people compared to the death. So were about 5000 us and read about 55 5007 and about 100,000 jobs lost. So that's the scale that were talking about and then to put this together.

I wasn't trying to wade anything because I didn't want to have any kind of subjectiveness to the surgeon I was going with the simplest way to put this together to become a useful tool for others, and so I use New Jersey which was the worst state in terms of deaths and may in Nevada which was the worst date in terms of jobs lost in May. Those were my baseline of 100 and everything else kind of comes around that and then I just add the two together. Let's talk a little bit more if we could about what you saw in the data over time as you look from month to month to month were things bouncing around and in both both metrics are you seeing trends jobs obviously continue to increase across all states but which states are losing our are losing lives at a faster rate that does very New Jersey was was terrible at the start New York and others, but they their their death rate slow down tremendously since April. North Carolina has had some acceleration in death.

So the latest numbers I have are from October because of unemployment because employment numbers but we we saw that debts were getting a little worse in that job recovery was slowing down. June was our best month for North Carolina and it's in the summer and into the early fall is not been as is as rapid of improvement on either side. Joe, you have been following those some job loss numbers closely and the associated unemployment benefit that is been given out to just hundreds of thousands of people, if not more than that here in North Carolina. Can you give us a general sense of where we stand in terms of the numbers of people who are still living on an unemployment check. The last numbers were October and we were down a couple hundred thousand jobs from February and so not as rapid of recovery as as we would've hoped, but given the balance of things in both in that's both policy and and personal behavior so a couple states have come near to recovery with jobs Ohio has done that but North Carolina were still struggling on that side and and it's hard to know what what how quickly we can continue the recovery. Joe, the John Locke foundation has also been trying to provide some context on this issue of facemasks in the associated mandates from governors including Gov. Cooper about wearing them set kind of a brief synopsis of what the issue is that you John Locke foundation is trying to illustrate analyzing the issue of facemasks the other there. The biggest thing is just what right does the governor have to mandate this and how much of a fit of an effect is a mandate have on behavior because people are are are responding based on what they see Nesta biggest issue that we have in an there are questions about the research that's been done as to effectiveness and everybody understands that clock mass aren't as effective as other things and what is actually in you know how are you wearing them all about that bet come down to how we how we respond, but that that all goes back to the unit. What's the point of a mandate, Joe Colletti, a senior fellow here at the Locke foundation. You can read all of his work, just think thank you. Same with this much North Carolina journal radio to come in just a moment tired of fake names tired of reporters with political axes to grind. What you need to be reading Carolina journal, honest, uncompromising, old-school journalism, you expect and you need even better, the monthly Carolina journal is free to subscribers sign up@carolinajournal.com you'll receive Carolina journal newspaper in your mailbox each month. Investigations into government spending revelations about boondoggles. The powerful leaders are and what they're doing in your name and with your money. We shine a light on it all with the stories and angles. Other outlets barely cover but there's a bonus print newspapers published monthly by our daily news site gives you the latest news each and every day lot on to Carolina journal.com once, twice, even three times a day. You won't be disappointed. It's fresh news if you'd like a heads up on the daily news sign up for our daily email do that Carolina journal.com Carolina journal rigorous unrelenting old-school journalism.

We hold government accountable for you. Look back to Carolina journal radio why Michiko got Roy Cooper once his new bipartisan commission on healthcare coverage to focus on Medicaid expansion. It's a gold he's been pushing for four years but not everyone is excited about that idea. During the group's first meeting Republican State Sen. Joyce Kravitz of Forsyth County offered some other ideas.

To be honest I was a little disappointed when I saw we were starting with Medicaid expansion set because it has been such a controversial topic, so I'm glad that were moving on to other things that we also know that in order to improve access we need to find ways to reduce calls so I was glad to hear some of those issues addressed.

Kravitz highlighted some specifics starting with a state law that requires healthcare providers to get a government permission slip for adding new hospital beds work major medical equipment. The certificate of need that we worked on last session, I think that's really important that we look at that. So I hope that will consider how will consider talking more in depth about that at some point.

On the other thing we had a bill last time that we passed for Association health plans came up in the discussion that so many businesses do not provide coverage for their employees Association health plan that we estimated it was going to cover about another hundred hundred and 50,000 people in North Carolina by enabling this business is to be able to purchase reduced insurance pool to go gather together just like the big insurance companies date business community was overwhelmingly behind. It's a great idea to improve coverage to a lot of those folks, particularly in some of those low-wage industries settle. I'm looking forward to that was held because there is a court case in another state. I personally think we need to move forward with it anyway. We had no idea when that decision is going to be made it. It's just prohibiting a lot of people from getting the coverage that they could get was glad to see us talk about telehealth and how we can improve that we've seen how beneficial is the enduring because of it. So I'm hoping that you know will will hear a little more about that found someplace that we can that we can do that also help will talk about recognizing out-of-state licenses for providers, so it makes it easier for them to come your practice. Do not have to go through many states have done this and I think we can do it safely and we can do it we can do it right so I think that would help as far is increasing. Providers also want to see us look into state reinsurance plans. I don't know how many of you are familiar with that other states are doing. It does take a waiver to enable that it think it's think it's worth pursuing. Kravitz also mentioned an interest in hearing from some other voices is also a little bit disappointed that we didn't include one of our one of our most well-known health policy think tanks in North Carolina.

The Locke foundation and maybe that was just an oversight.

They're constantly coming up with ideas for health policy listening to comments from the first meeting of a new group got Roy Cooper set it up to consider ideas about boosting healthcare access and coverage in North Carolina Republican representative Donnie Lamberth followed up on Saturday Joyce Kravitz's remarks, I think this is a very broad topic. Quite frankly am a little disappointed.

We spent so much time just don't expansion but telemedicine is a part of the meeting. Axis needs to rule North Carolina I hear a lot about the difficulty that will access issues because he can't recruit physicians they can't recruit nurses that can't recruit nurse practitioners, and whether there'll be programs such as loan forgiveness incentives to get caregivers to go into somebody's difficult survey areas and I could go on and on with topics that I think are very important for access and to improve access not.

I think many of those asserted probably mentioned are important that we look at his whale so I think there's a lot we can talk about and can in fact improve on the expansion of broadband to enable telehealth/you think is good topic for us to kick around little bit see if there's something that good can come out. It would Republican representative Donald white of Johnston County chimed in really need to address the issue of Skype practice. Each discipline should be able to teach health practitioner should be able to function at their current state that the practice without Senate regulation that has nothing to do with their ability to understand that is one of the issues that we really need a top list to discuss but certainly increased access to a lot of the community.

Republicans are the only ones interested in removing some unnecessary regulatory barriers democratic representative Carla Cunningham followed up the comments about scope of practice.

Looking at that advanced practice for our physician assistant, nurse at this and I'm nurse practitioners when the ACA was created for eight to be done it, including that those individuals that have advanced practice would be able to follow filled the gap with primary care physicians were available but because of the short turnaround for them to become active in our communities, but I don't want to get stuck on that and sealed in is not the issue but also is as well. Going for what to look at the needs of the people of North Carolina. Where are we going to be what calls it settles down the expectation of the increase in mental health needs.

The expectation of long-haul collar so bad and more people becoming disabled and unable to work that will follow into the Medicaid or file to Medicaid and Medicare. The project we still don't know. So I think the data is being collected. We don't know yet, the suicide rate increase uptake, possibly because the data is just not available but we do know that domestic violence increase. We do know that child abuse increase those all have impacts on the healthcare assay.

If you can't brief you can't read, and I think that is the aspect that I and as for us, but that in a couple care for the people of the state. They are struggling now, but they will be struggling more as the common lots and data is revealed and so I would like to see us trying to bring everything to the table � what us moving forward moving forward and how we are seated the sentences of North Carolina and the entire state becoming a more date. Another democratic representative Gail Adcock wants to hear from businesses increasing access to health insurance is a workhorse support so I think that is something that we could really hear from Dez businesses in sales what what they want to believe our state has an opportunity to look at other changes. Other transfer forms that will support whatever plan or plans. We cannot increase access to health insurance is to allow the entire healthcare workforce.org and their full licensure so that we can really take advantage of deploying our entire workforce, and that because our colleagues are doing value work just cannot do it all in sales help secretary Mandy Cohen is listening. Thanks a narcotic. In particular, outlining a number of issues that I would like to bring into discussion here as well as making sure that actually inviting someone from John not present I got a have a number of ideas and then we really need that marketplace of ideas on coverage that's state Health and Human Services secretary Mandy: wrapping up the first meeting of a new group looking into healthcare access and coverage issues for North Carolina germ with North Carolina Jones radio in a moment. If you have freedom we got great news to share with you now. You can find the latest news, views, and research from conservative groups across North Carolina all in one place North Carolina conservative.com it's one stop shopping. North Carolina's freedom movement and North Carolina conservative.com.

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Specifically, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter Tillis focused on big text possible role in pushing a particular political agenda. Mr. Zuckerberg you mentioned there was a systematic coordination between Google and Twitter but you could conceive of how people and some more professions you may have a discussion have a relationship.

Maybe talk about it over a beer or so could you say well how the.

The skeptic could see how these platforms could be used across platforms to force certain outcomes. Jos� Hunter people of Facebook under people and Twitter and 100 people googled it all had a political bent. They get together they share notes and then they go back and make decisions. The could make it appear like it's a corporate initiative, but it could be an initiative but maybe some well-intentioned but misguided staff can could you at least conceive of that the impossible sooner. I understand the concern and I think that coordination specifically on writing the policies or enforcement decisions could be problematic in the Whittier site, which is why I really wanted to make sure that it was clear that what we do is share signals around potential harms the same whether it's specific content, in the aftermath of terrorist attack that people try to share virally so one platform is seeing it. Another platform can talk to people cared content soon to do signals around foreign interference elections, but I think it's quite important that each company deals with signals in the way that is in line with their own policies that I think is very different from same companies are coordinating to figure out what the policy should be concern would be around so I want to be clear about what we do and don't agree with would find it horribly are responsible to think that this was some sort of a systematic approach across the platforms purchase with the sheer numbers of people that you all employ no, I could see how some of what's been suggested here in the hearing could actually occur with just small groups of people trying to manipulate certain outcomes. That's North Carolina's recently reelected US Sen. Tom Tillis within a couple of weeks of the election. He was back on Capitol Hill for a high profile hearing questioned big text CEOs about their companies roles in pushing particular partisan political agendas for Carolina journal radio where doubling down on freedom at Carolina journal radio were proud to bring you stories that impact your life and your wallet. And now get twice as much freedom when you also listen to our podcast headlock available on iTunes and@johnlocke.org/podcast Locke is a little bit different.

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Welcome back Carolina journal radio amateur coca a special statehouse committee has been looking into issues linked to community relations law enforcement and justice in North Carolina. It's safe to say the ideas put forward in a draft report card drawing a mixed response. Republican representative Keith Kidwell started a recent review of the report with a list of concerns. Kidwell started with questions about a proposal to compile law enforcement agencies use of force. Your version of use of force may differ from my version of use of force in speaking with the sure forges while you this morning know somebody grabbing me by the elbow and asked me to step in a certain direction could be viewed as a use of force. There would be required to be reported so that so that would be my my very first concern. Quite honestly, what I read through this report and I get down to the bottom. We have numerous situations here were it would appear, in many cases we just want to throw law enforcement to the Wyndham why bother with list.

Let's not cooperate with ice eliminating cash bail me I could go on and on with this requiring written consent to search the vehicle in a traffic stop know.

Maybe next time we could start since having lawyers right along the back of the police cars and let them deal with their Miranda rights errors on the street beyond just the verbal communication.

It says that they can use that they can search a vehicle ending employment at will. Here's a situation where law enforcement particular, you are sure, some police chiefs have to have a level of confidence in the officers and deputies and serve with them in if they don't have the confidence to should have the ability to terminate those people without getting into a lot of detail at you out of all the jobs we have in this country is probably wanted certainly needs to be at will, eliminating mandatory minimum sentences. This is not a metal of the law that we put into effect throughout the United States because people were getting away with crimes and judges were being too lenient on how how they would be handled eliminating school resource officers sure we could maybe have her own. There are very own Parkland shooting here in North Carolina to be a great idea that might work in some areas it might not work in other areas. That is certainly something that needs to be left up to the local communities, not the general assembly that's a decision. It has to be thought out and implemented and paid for by local taxpayers. So what we will be sending out an unfunded liability if we forced him to do it and we may be taking away something they want. If we so you can't do it. Eliminating felony murder somebody gets murdered in the act of a crime and we don't want to charge him with murder. That doesn't make sense.

I could go on and on. I won't. There's there's too many areas in this to say you know what, what are we thinking with this. This report was to be submitted as a standby that would certainly be a no state representative Keith Kidwell explaining his concerns about a draft legislative report on community relations law enforcement and justice Republican representative John Zilkha cochairs the committee that drafted the report, he responded to the concerns we all know the new general assembly can hold the future general assembly to anything so we can't say that will turn this into a law and a member sure be returning or new members could certainly look at these recommendations and submit some legislation. The purpose of this was to look at the variety of different issues which led to social unrest and inequity in certain things that happen in our country and we want to make sure the we look to those things are those issues that were applied North Carolina if there were some of those things that we would make. In fact, recommendations.

How, perhaps, that we as a body could recommend to the next room, assembly, that they focus on certain things. Description of Kidwell point on.

That was not my intent was just to in a spirit of inclusion of all different points of view of the committee to make note of all the things that were brought forward by all members of the committee wasn't saying that we support or not support any one of those if you also recall the makeup of the committee was intentional both Republicans and Democrats members with members of the general public with members of our law enforcement community of members of the DAs experts in various things so that we would get a wide viewpoint of where we were in the state from from a personal viewpoint.

There's things a lot of things I learned here that I didn't know about our state law and hopefully other people learn a lot of things as well. I think the purpose of the committee, and the purpose of this document so we don't have to reinvent the wheel if you will going forward into the next legislative session were saying well what happened and what we can do about it now I have to repeat all this work. So these are also rank order in the terms of your abundances. Committee members and personally I didn't vote on this is is a chair I wanted to know what the committee thought on this McPherson had 12 or 14 votes and one from them all the way down to the one vote are no votes for some of those things.

So this was a not in a social consensus but it was a rank ordered view of committee members from varied backgrounds and experience levels on what we think we should recommend to make it easier for the next conveying legislature to address. We are trying to point the way. Send the signal that we have looked at this in detail Democratic representative Amos QIC of Guilford County offered a different perspective, the general assembly recognize that something must be done and to go back with a pen and paper exercise and say well we looked at it, but there's nothing that we can do think that would be misappropriation of of efforts of our image and of the collective wisdom and intellect that is in this room also will say that bill can be introduced within the main is going to get a hearing. It does mean is going to get up vote. It means that a meal will be introduced unless there's some student collective will from this committee to push those things along than this will turn into a pen and paper exercise and it will be a disappointment to a state that we have announced that were doing this work we go back to the citizens of the state of North Carolina and say well we looked at it, but nothing's going to change. I think that would be a dereliction of duty retiring Republican representative Craig Horn of Union County chimed in. I think we don't exactly what we were asked to do which is to bring forth concerns of the citizenry concerns of law enforcement concerns of of all the folks that that impact all these greater issues that resulted from a period of significant unrest and dissatisfaction across our state. So I think we we have done exactly that, in light of us being a select committee that wasn't necessarily established to create or recommend legislation, albeit I know we can we appears to me that we can do that but we also know that we've got here. Everything here including mixed kitchen sink when it comes to breath and depth of issues surrounding the very title of our of our committee community relations law enforcement justice that state representative Craig Horn, one of the speakers during a recent meeting of the special statehouse committee was set up to look at two important issues like to community relations law enforcement and justice will return with North Carolina journal radio in a moment real influence. You either have it or you don't and at the John Mott foundation we have it, you'll find our guiding principles in many of the freedom forward reforms of the past decade here in North Carolina.

So while others talk or complaint or name call. We provide research solutions and hope our team analyzes the pressing issues of the day jobs, healthcare, education, and more. We look for effective ways to give you more freedom, more options, more control over your life. Our goal is to transform North Carolina into a growing, thriving economic powerhouse, the envy of every other state research is how policymakers make decisions that ensure you keep more of what you are. Expand your choice of schools for your kids. Widen your job opportunities improve your access to doctors. The recipe for stability and a bright future for truth for freedom for the future of North Carolina.

We are the John Locke foundation. Welcome back to Carolina journal radio I'm Donna Martinez, North Carolina teachers are choosing to stay in their jobs. That is the analysis of the John Locke foundation's Terry stoops are education expert who writes that we really should be pleased that the statewide teacher attrition rate is dropping. He says not only does that mitigate turnover costs, but it also suggests that the investments made by the Republican-led Gen. assembly are beginning to pay off Terry stoops joins me now Terry, welcome back to the show Q so the narrative over a number of years now has been that teachers are fleeing North Carolina in droves because they don't like the Republicans leading the general assembly but this the latest data from the state shows a pretty different story. The last several years. Yeah, that's right. And the North Carolina Department of Public instruction is required to publish a report called state of the teaching profession every year and submitted to the Gen. assembly and this report. So which was redesigned about five years ago provides details about seven very basic details about teacher attrition and mobility attrition being teachers that leave the profession and mobility. Teachers that move from one job in public school to another, and really attrition is is what the focus should be. And when you look over the last five years. Teacher attrition is fallen significantly in North Carolina five years ago we had an attrition rate of 9% and the last school year. It has it. It reached 7.53%.

So that is a 1.5 percentage point drop in teacher attrition and that is an amazing amazing feats to be able to retain more teachers in in just a span of five years is really really a significant turn of does the report give any insight about why the teachers are leaving or why they left very basic insights. The teachers self-reports using existing categories to describe why they're leaving so if they are let the left their position to get a teaching job in another state. For example if they left due to some other family circumstance or if they're moving or if there teach for America term has expired. Then there's categories for each of these in entrances and every other year, the highest proportion of teachers that leave the profession of those that retire either with full or partial benefits typically about 1/4 of the teachers that leave the profession in a given year, retire, and one may say well you know there's not much we can do about that is the state of the teacher once retire they can retire and so the focus really should be on those categories of attrition that the state may be able to do something about the knees or teachers that are dissatisfied with their job or are leaving their job for some other type of work. That's not always a bad thing. Sometimes teaching is a bad fit for some folks, so we want them to go explore other opportunities.

But there are times where teachers leave the profession, and they were otherwise outstanding teachers, and if given the right incentives would have stayed in their position, but unfortunately decided to leave. I take it then that in this state report there's no box state that a teacher can check to say I don't like the Republicans in the Gen. assembly cut so I'm leaving the profession. Nothing like that even though we have seen and heard that narrative for a number of years now.

Okay so that's attrition you mentioned early on the issue of mobility teachers moving from one district to another district within our state. Is that prevalent not really an end mobility really needs to be understood Inc. in terms of school districts competing for talents and that's really what we want is a state is that school districts should be competing for talents and trying to create the conditions necessary to recruit the best teachers to their districts.

We we often look down upon a district like wake which is able to pay its teachers more than say surrounding districts and Johnson or Harnett County but we want this constant push and pull for districts because we want them to compete for that very small pool of talent that sometimes exist for certain areas. So what you were looking about a 4% rate of mobility and that's pretty been pretty consistent across the years so so mobility isn't a big part of of what happens with with teachers in any given year, there are districts to complain about mobility because there are costs associated with mobility.

Obviously you you do have to find a new teacher to replace the one but there is no cost to the state, in the sense that it teachers leaving the profession altogether thinking of costs you writing your piece which folks can read@johnlocke.org about the attrition that when it's lower that helps to mitigate the cost because teaching is like any other industry. Frankly, when someone leaves you have all of that that knowledge loss that goes with them. You have to hire someone retrain them, etc. it and I don't often hear a lot of discussion of that talk a little bit about those costs associated with the teacher leaving yeah well you know the costs vary significantly.

So if you're replacing the teacher with someone that's just out of university. The cost is to be much higher because there is additional training that needs to occur than if you have a season teacher moving from one school district to another, moving from from one state into North Carolina so the costs vary significantly in and that that cost is really borne by the school districts there's there's no good calculation right now to determine how much they cost that they actually bear fruit for recruitment of new teachers for training new teachers so that others not. Not a good estimate that I could give.

But you know districts would probably be good to report that they do if they did have it to talk about what some of the costs are now one of the benefits to attrition is the fact that the teachers leaving are typically and we don't have it in this report, but there typically of lower quality than the teachers that stay in the profession. We know from analysis done by the Department of Public instruction that the growth scores of teachers that leave the profession North Carolina are typically lower than those that stay in the profession, and so the cost to replace that teacher may is borne by the school district but the students may actually benefits by having a bad teacher leave the district leaves the profession and being presumably replaced with a better one tarried the Republican leadership in the Gen. assembly has for number of years now been focusing intently on K-12 education in all sorts of different ways policy decisions as well.

As things like teacher pay increasing teacher pay multiple times to give us a sense of how teachers have improved on their pay and benefits over the past half-dozen years or so. Well we we seen significant increases in teacher pay the average teacher pay is increased by around 21% since 2014 so and benefits are increasing right along with that sourcing significant increases in pay and benefits and this is what always gets me about this report when it comes out is that if I was a member of the opposition.

If I was a Democrat or member of the North Carolina Association of educators. I would say look are attrition rate is decreasing because teacher pay keeps going up and I would be making that connection, even though you know we would have to do more research to determine whether there really is a connection between teacher pay and the attrition rate but that's what they say.

Of course, so we can assume that one of the reasons why teachers are saying the profession is because increase pay.

The report doesn't necessarily point to that but I think it's a pretty good idea about why a lot of teachers decide to stay in North Carolina public schools. Terry, thanks for joining us talk about it. Thank you. That's all the time we have for the program this week. Thank you for listening on behalf of my cohost Mitch.

Okay I'm Donna Martinez help you join us again next week for more Carolina general radio related journal radio is a program of the John Locke to learn more about the John Locke foundation donations support programs like Carolina journal radio send email to development John Locke call 66 jail left 166-553-4636 Carolina journal radio is the John line foundation, Carolina free-market think tank and Carolina broadcasting system, Inc. all opinions expressed on this program are so clearly reflect the station formation about the show. Other programs, foundation John Locke toll-free at 866 JM would like to thank our wonderful radio affiliates across Carolina and our sponsors. Carolina journal radio. Thank you for listening. Please join us again next week