It was so bad when it was first constructed that it had to be placed on hold.

Remember it was a creation of BEST NC, the business lobbying firm that is housed on the campus of SAS, the company that brought us EVAAS and is owned by Jim Goodnight, a major campaign contributor to GOP candidates on the state level.

So bad it was that Brenda Berg of BEST NC had to write an open defense of the plan in 2017.

“BEST NC is committed to working with state leaders to build on the state’s new plan and correct unintended consequences. We have consistently advocated that no principal should see a drop in pay as a result of this plan. Since this summer, we have worked in consultation with state associations and educator groups on technical corrections to ensure that no principal sees a loss in pay this year, and to create greater stability for all principals by extending the provision into future years. Going forward, we are also committed to refining the plan to increase incentives for great leaders to serve in struggling schools; and to continuing to increase North Carolina’s investment in school leaders overall.“

At that time, principal pay in NC was abysmal, but so badly conceived was this plan to link principal pay to achievement scores in a state that relied so much on SAS’s secret algorithm to “measure” an educator’s worth that the pre-pandemic, GOP-dominated, stingy NCGA held principals harmless.

Then this from the past week:

Now principals are going to have their pay altered based on ONE YEAR OF EVAAS DATA?

Five years after its inception, the state is now going to put this horrible plan into action in a year where public education is suffering from record vacancies and we are just coming out of the pandemic.

Oh, and since that 2017 op-ed mentioned earlier, the state has been told by the courts that it is not fully funding public education (LEANDRO) and we have a surplus built on the backs of taxpayers being used to fuel a narrative that we need to create more tax breaks for businesses in NC.

So, where is that business lobbying firm called BEST NC on this issue now? Maybe, they haven’t heard because they are too busy pushing this: