This week it was reported that the College Board would be applying a score to a student's SAT performance that is linked to that student's socioeconomic status. From CNN.com. The nonprofit group that administers the SAT said Thursday it will assign a score to students who take the test to reflect their social and economic … Continue reading Mark Johnson Loves “Dashboards.” Would He Consider This One? Concerning the New SAT “Adversity” Score.

Today, Betsy DeVos tweeted the following. "Educational freedom" and "equal educational opportunities" don't mean the same things. Not in the public school landscape in this country or especially in North Carolina. What Brown vs. Board was outlaw school segregation, but systemic racism is still rampant, both overtly and covertly. Let us as a state be … Continue reading Betsy DeVos’s Tweet About Brown vs. Board of Ed. And What She & NC Still Have to Learn

Many in Raleigh who defend the ill-tempered reforms that have been introduced over the last eight years point to the NEA's calculations of "average" teacher pay as evidence of "progress" in the public education system due to those reforms. But will they give the same credence to the the National Education Association for this report … Continue reading If the NCGA Looks to the NEA for Average Salaries, Then Will They Accept This?

"You expect at least eight weeks paid vacation per year because that is what the taxpayers of North Carolina gave you back when you were a poorly compensated teacher." - Sen, David Curtis in May of 2014 in response to a teacher letter. "I suspect that most people, if told they could work 10 months … Continue reading Summers Are Not Paid Vacations For Teachers – Far From It

If Raleigh is going play around with Civic and Economics classes to include lessons on personal finance, then can they also tweak the curriculum to make sure and cover real life applications of civics and economics as well? Could they include the fact that North Carolina is the only state in the country that does … Continue reading Can We Change NC’s Civics Classes To Include:

In 2013, the state of North Carolina started using a value-added measurement scale to help gauge teacher effectiveness and school performance. Developed by SAS which is headquartered in the Triangle area of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, EVAAS collects student data and creates reports that are used to measure teacher and school effectiveness. EVAAS stands … Continue reading North Carolina Needs to Stop Being So SASsy

Last Friday, WRAL posted an editorial board opinion on its website entitled "Editorial: Private school vouchers to be even more open to corruption, waste." It stated, Let us be clear, we DO NOT oppose private school vouchers. We DO strongly believe there should be reasonable and responsible accountability and transparency in how these tax dollars … Continue reading Dear PEFNC, Whether It’s “Our Money” or “Your Money,” There is No Proof That Vouchers Are Working

Charles Davenport Jr., an Editorial Board Member for the N&R, last year penned one of the most blatantly ignorant op-eds in recent memory when he made a claim that NC teachers were probably paid enough if not too much because “as far as academic rigor is concerned, education majors are not even in the same … Continue reading When Someone Who Needs to be Educated About Education Writes an Op-Ed About Public Education

When Mark Johnson sent one of his “informative” emails this past week in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, he made the following statements: We should talk to our students about considering the teaching profession. Teacher compensation is competitive with other careers. (Starting salaries for teachers in NCrange from $35,000 to $41,000 per school year — the … Continue reading What Mark Johnson Didn’t Tell You About Those Teacher Salaries in One Graph