The last place anyone should be looking for facts is at Vox.

Case in point, their latest on ‘teacher pay’ which is meant to stir up more teacher strikes using outdated and unweighted data sets from… wait for it… one of the largest teacher unions in the country.

I actually was just waiting for a Democrat to share this Vox piece of junk.  Leave it to Darren “No” Jackson to be the first one I saw.

Vox’s article attempts to spin teacher salary gaps using two-year-old incomplete data from one of the largest teacher’s unions – The NEA.

There are multiple problems with Vox’s latest “voxsplaining” article:

1.The data comparison they use only goes through 2016 and leaves out the last two years of gains. For example, the average teacher salary in NC as of 2018 is now $51,214. This is including local supplement pay.

On top of that, is coming from the NEA, which has not accurately compiled state teacher pay data since they started keeping track of it.

The NEA only looks at base pay; no benefits, no bonuses, no certification bumps and no local supplemental additions. The NEA also does not include the dollar value changes and related cost of living disparities from state to state.

2. Vox claims that “It looks like all salaries have been increasing, but that’s a bit misleading because we have to adjust for inflation.” Why do we have to adjust for inflation?

What other industry makes this argument?

Only one – The Fast Food industry and they’re doing it at the behest of unions to raise the minimum wage. We’re seeing the fruits of that campaign with mass layoffs, closures and workers being moved to part-time.

Our local media like using this argument too. What you will not find in this WRAL article is why it dropped: In 2009, Democrat Governor Bev Perdue & the Democrat-controlled legislature froze all educator pay.

When the Tea Party wave came in 2010, Republicans were in the driver’s seat in NC for the first time in over 100 years and they inherited a mess and were attacked relentlessly on Education in the state from the very start. (Good summary here of what happened)

As I stated earlier, neither the Vox nor the WRAL article weight inflation & dollar worth by state either and that makes a huge difference.

3. It’s VOX. If someone asked them to analyze and name the colors of a rainbow, they’d find a way to botch it. Related: 46 times Vox totally F**ked up a Story