When Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451, he was living in a time of the rising Cold War and the end of Nazism. The novel is a futuristic look (in 1950) into what society might be like if reading books were banned by the government. Firemen, who were the governmental workers who burned rogue books, would use … Continue reading Censorship and the Fear of Free Thought – Attacking Vital Books In Our Public Schools

Okay. I have said it before – even before this pandemic but… We need the seven-period school day back. It’s better for schools. It’s better for teachers. But most of all, it is better for students. In years past, winter weather and Winter Break obviously dictate a great amount in the time I see students … Continue reading Coming Back From This Pandemic Reinforces That We Should Go Back to the 7-Period School Day

It's rather hard to be a teacher in North Carolina this year. It has been three years since a budget has been passed by an NCGA that is bent against public education. We have a Lt. Governor who has a bogus task force that is investigating "indoctrination" based on circumstantial and biased "evidence." Some schools … Continue reading Damn Right “It’s A Slap In The Face” – Stagnant Teacher Pay But Double-Digit Raises At DPI?

My district is the fifth biggest in the state serving over 50,000 students. More than half of those students use transportation provided by the school system to get to and from their schools. There was already a shortage of bus drivers before the school year started. It's even an bigger shortage now. What many people … Continue reading This District’s Bus Drivers Are About To Strike. It’s The State’s Fault.

Below are screenshots from the front page of the Winston-Salem Journal from just this past week. One week. Seven editions. Bonuses for employees are not going to solve a damn thing until this NCGA starts funding schools as they should. When more guns have been found in our schools than there are social workers in … Continue reading Pornography, Parent Disturbances, Loaded Guns, Shootings, COVID, Witch Hunts & Politics – Not The Way To Recruit Educators

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U.S. News & World Report is probably most well-known for its rankings of colleges and universities. It's a rather fragile system for ranking. Malcolm Gladwell in his latest season of the podcast Revisionist History deals with the parameters and variables used in the ranking system and shows its drastic shortcomings. Whether you agree with Gladwell's … Continue reading Now U.S. News & World Report Is Ranking K-8 Schools – And Stigmatizing Many Of Them

Jon Gruden resigned as a head coach of a privately held professional football team for egregiously harmful comments linked to him in emails before he took over his current post. North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson won't even apologize for his homophobic, transphobic and hurtful comments as an elected official for much more publicly given … Continue reading This NFL Coach Resigned. Our Lt. Gov. Won’t Even Apologize.

Consider that we have the highest ranking republican doubling down on his stance on "filth." Furthermore, his political enablers in the NC General Assembly have refused to pass a budget in three years and have kept passing negative education reform after another. And there is this: McDonald's is giving more respect to teachers in one … Continue reading A Double-Down Vs. A Double Sausage & Egg McMuffin

For all of the pushback (and some support) that Lt. Mark Robinson has received for the now viral video of his talk at Asbury Baptist Church last June, releasing a video today to answer his critics on his choice of words and stance just confirms what most of us already know: Robinson is trying to … Continue reading 2 Minutes & 38 Seconds Of Unsubstantiated BS