Monday, Atkinson launched her upcoming Class Size Matters Tour with a press conference organized by the state Democratic Party.  Atkinson argued that more teachers and smaller class sizes are needed to provide students the individual attention they need. But she says that's becoming increasingly difficult with state and federal budget cuts to education. Atkinson said last year, those cuts meant 5,000 fewer education jobs in the state, including nearly 1,000 full-time teachers and more than 2,000 teaching assistants. And she says that it's only going to get worse, “since the budget passed last month doesn't make up for the loss of federal money that Pres. Obama fought to provide to the states during tough economic times.” Atkinson says North Carolina will lose at least another 190 million dollars, on top of the over 400 million dollars already lost last year.

Ruth Sartin, an English teacher at Winston-Salem's R-J Reynolds High School, is joining Atkinson on the Class Size Matters Tour. She says the budget cuts have made an already difficult situation in the classroom even worse. "At R-J Reynolds, I have had class sizes of 35 to 38 students,” she says. “Basic necessities like enough desks and enough textbooks have become issues on the first day of school."