This teacher pay story is solid gold. From WTVD reporter Julie Wilson:
Back to May of 2019, that massive rally left no room on the stage for Republicans to speak, despite a request from the State Treasurer made in advance with hopes of explaining benefits.
“Many folks asked us to speak,” Mark Jewell, President of the NCAE said. “Democrats and Republicans alike. Elected officials and candidates, we rejected all of those. We did not want it to turn into a political rally, it was really about education.”
When asked if the NCAE has a preference to the Democratic party, Jewell responded saying “I keep going back that public education is neither Democrat or Republican. It has always been in our core value and in our constitution that every citizen should have access to basic, sound public education.”
A dive into campaign contributions made from the NCAE PAC reveals a bit of a different tale. Reviewing reports dating back to 2014 made to the North Carolina Board of Elections detailed which candidates received NCAE support–nearly all Democrats, with multiple donations made to the North Carolina Democratic Party. Zero were made to the North Carolina GOP.
Here is a photo of Mark Jewell at a Roy Cooper rally in 2016:
Three years later, Cooper returned the favor. In other words, it’s a flat-out lie that the NCAE rejected all elected officials and candidates. Below is a photo of Gov. Roy Cooper speaking at the May 1 rally.
