Senator Berger learned first-hand the value of a good education. Improving public schools, ensuring better classroom results and creating opportunities for every student willing to work hard have become his highest legislative priorities.

He’s succeeded in passing proven school reforms: Senator Berger led the fight for teacher pay raises, a performance pay structure that rewards our best educators, and an initiative to guarantee students can read proficiently in the crucial early years of their education.

Senator Berger believes a top-notch education begins with high-quality teachers. So he helped secure an average 19% pay raise, or more than $8,600 per teacher, for North Carolina’s public school teachers – their first real raise in decades.

Other education reforms Senator Berger has championed in the State Senate: opportunity scholarships for disabled students and those in failing schools, increasing state dollars going directly into classrooms, lifting the cap on the number of innovative public charter schools in North Carolina, and a transparent, easy-to-understand A-F scale to rate and evaluate our public schools.