Well!  I was hoping to report that Representative Fulghum was going to visit my wife's elementary school.  Well that is not going to happen.  It appears that the school's principal got cold feet and required too many hoops to bring this concerned Representative in.  I would have thought that he would have embraced the fact that someone was going to see the crappy conditions his, and other teachers, work with each day.  I never expected this, nor the cold response from him, but I did.  You would have thought that I was asking him for money $$$.  Geezzzz!
Come to think about it.  How many principals or administrators have shown up for any protest events around the state.  I can count them on my hand, or at least on a couple of fingers.  But then why on earth would they want to protest, they make above average money, have great benefits, don't have to write lesson plans, don't get observed in their job, and most importantly DO NOT have to be in the classroom each day.  Out of sight becomes out of mind.
If one were to go into the North Carolina newspaper archives you would discover that teacher pay and benefits have been an issue that has been on the table for at least 30 years.  Our state representatives have this whole thing figured out.  They can expect teachers to complain and gripe about their situation every 10 years and then the story drops off of the radar and life goes on.  They figure that as long as teachers are being hired and continue to go to work then they don't have to change anything.  Why should they care as long as they can get re-elected by pointing the finger at someone else for not caring.  And who out there is checking the facts.  People politicians say what we want to hear.  Their Moto is, "hear what I say, not what I do."
Listen to NPR's radio broadcast this morning about the teachers strike in Mexico.  The last time something like this happened in the US was during the Vietnam war protests.  My we have become a passive society.

http://www.npr.org/2013/08/27/215979214/thousands-of-striking-teachers-disrupt-mexico-city