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CHARLOTTE – The economic downturn tightened the pocketbooks for education leaders across the state, but a report shows North Carolina is now near the bottom of per-pupil spending and teacher pay.

“Teacher quality in North Carolina is rated a B while funding is rated an F,” said North Carolina Association of Educators President Sherri Strickland.

The NCAE report, Investing in North Carolina's Future, highlights other studies that show the state is now ranked 46th in the country in per-pupil spending and 45th in teacher pay.

“Every time we lose a position in a public school someone else has to take over that work. It doesn't go away,” Strickland said.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board chairman Eric Davis said the direction things are heading will make those numbers even worse. School districts across the state are bracing for even more dramatic cuts as the state tries to slash more than $2 billion out of the budget.

“The impact is not the single year, it's the cumulative effect of year over year funding cuts,” Davis said.

This comes as North Carolina students are doing better, and fewer are dropping out.

“The results that our students are delivering now over the past four years is positive, heading in the right direction, cutting the achievement gap. These type of funding cuts will have a crippling effect on those results,” said Davis.

Strickland said the state's schools have been doing more with less, but at some point, “that won't be possible anymore."

The NCAE believes up to 20,000 teachers and assistants could lose their jobs next year as the state deals with the budget shortfall.