In the state of North Carolina, over 56% of the state budget is dedicated to public education, most of which goes to K-12 (and pre-K) education.

It’s specifically stated in Article IX of the state constitution that the state establish a free and viable means of educating school age-children.

Sec. 2.  Uniform system of schools.

(1)        General and uniform system: term.  The General Assembly shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of free public schools, which shall be maintained at least nine months in every year, and wherein equal opportunities shall be provided for all students.

That alone makes education a political issue.

If lawmakers, especially those with the most power in Raleigh today, control the fate of funding and measuring public schools, then it is impossible to separate politics and public education.

And with the elections coming in November under the shadow of gerrymandering and a Voter ID law as well as a budget rammed through with a nuclear option, it almost begs for any public school teacher or advocate to do something that sounds like taboo to some: becoming political.

When 20,000 teachers and public education supporters marched and rallied in Raleigh on May 16th, they didn’t go to the offices of the Department of Public Instruction; they went to the General Assembly because that is where policy is decided.

Those who decide and craft policy tend to look at education from the outside in. It has been no secret that much of the educational “reform” that has occurred in this state has been without much (if any) teacher input. And many of those same lawmakers who are up for reelection this November have taken actions to lessen the power of collective teacher voices: career status and due-process rights removed and lack of graduate degree pay bumps to name just a few. Those are political actions.

When NCAE was targeted by the NCGA on its automatic deduction of dues from paychecks it was a political move to lessen the strength of the largest teacher advocacy group in this right-to-work state.

Education simply is clothed by politics.

So when somebody says that teachers should not be political, then that person needs to explain how a teacher cannot be political and still advocate for schools and students. In fact, this teacher would say that all public school teachers and advocates should be very political this election year.

This state has a wide gap in the urban / rural divide. Actually, it’s not wide; it’s expansive. To say that all of the public school teachers in this state have the same partisan leanings is foolish. This state has about as (roughly speaking) as many people registered as democrats as republicans with a healthy dose of independents. North Carolina is about as purple as it gets. In 2016, over 10,000 people who voted for Donald Trump as President also voted for Roy Cooper to be governor.

And everyone has a stake in public education whether it is directly as a parent or student or employee of the school system or as a taxpayer.

Education is political. But it hasn’t always been this partisan.

Write a blog or a bunch of op-eds and you will receive criticism in many forms. Some of it will be negative and personal and because you argue against what Raleigh is doing with public education you may be tagged with partisan labels.

That’s fine. Teach public school long enough and you will come across lots of criticism of the occupation and the perceived performance of our schools. Actually constructive criticism might be one of the best gifts anyone can receive.

It’s funny that decades ago, public education was championed by both democrats and republicans alike. Think of governors like Holshousher and Martin and you will see a commitment to funding public education like NC saw with Sanford, Hunt, and Easley. The governor’s office and the General Assembly were often in different hands politically speaking, but on the issue of public education, they stood much more united than it is today.

 

The surest way to advocate for public schools is to make sure that those who are in power as politicians are pro-public education, not just with their words, but with their actions. That’s politics.

Education is a political issue.

Teachers and public school advocates should be political as well; therefore, vote.

 

400 years since he died. Four centuries. Multiple generations. New countries discovered.

And we still read his work and revere it as a mirror of human nature.

There is a bit of a revival taking place in some schools involving Shakespeare. The Common Core asks that student in each grade level come engage with Shakespeare in their English/Language Arts classes. Many high schools in North Carolina teach a Shakespeare elective (which is very popular in my own school).

But why does he still resonate with new generations? Simple. Shakespeare literally provides us with a blueprint for the human condition and the nature of men and women.

And I think the Bard would have much to say about our treatment of public education here in North Carolina, whose own capital was named for a man who was favored one time by the very woman who patronized Shakespeare.

In fact, he already has made statements very relevant to our state and, frankly, the entire nation.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

Cassius, he of the “lean and hungry” look, says this to Brutus in Julius Caesar. And while many may know that this gives rise to the title of the John Green book, it makes reference to the Elizabethan tendency to look at astrology and numerology for guidance.

It also talks of taking responsibility for your actions and how those actions may affect others.

Consider the effects of “re-forms” initiated by business groups, billionaires, and legislators like unregulated charter schools and vouchers that have siphoned public monies from the very students who rely upon traditional public schools. When will they learn that these initiatives do not work and have never worked? Will they take responsibility for their failures or blame the stars?

“Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.” 

These lines are from Twelfth Night spoken by Malvolio while reading a letter meant as a practical joke to feed his narcissism and fragile ego. However, there is so much truth in these words.

Think about how we as a society define “greatness,” yet remember that each person is free to interpret “greatness” in his/her own way. But the operative word in this quote is “achieve.” And there is no limit to what a student can achieve if our schools are properly funded and our teachers are supported by government officials. And just imagine how greatness would be defined.

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” 

The Countess in All’s Well That Ends Well says this to her son. If only our legislators and lawmakers all took this to heart. It would seem appropriate to also include Polonius’s words to his son Laertes in Hamlet, “To thine own self be true.” But Polonius’s motives throughout the play show that he really is nothing more than a government official bent on maintaining power and bending precedent.

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” 

This is said by Touchstone, the court jester in the Arden Woods in As You Like It. What’s appropriate here is that it is the fool talking about a fool. It would be refreshing to think that those in power would even admit that their actions could actually be foolish and hurtful.

So many in Raleigh have been so dead set on their “solutions” (think Innovative School District) that they foolishly ignore what history has taught us.

“We know what we are, but not what we may be.”

As Ophelia’s madness starts to set in during the last part of Hamlet, she says this poignant quote to Claudius, who as a man in power has literally kept others from realizing their potential. Claudius is so busy with the past and the immediate present that he does not realize that he is sacrificing the future for all in his kingdom.

Sound familiar?

“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

This is from Shylock’s astounding monologue from Merchant of Venice as he explains that he as a Jew is discriminated against and that as a human he not treated as equally as others.

Considering that we have private schools which take Opportunity Grant monies and have admissions policies that do not allow for equal opportunity and that we also still have a law on the books called HB2, Shylock’s words are still so applicable.

“Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.”

Friar Laurence, a man of great intentions doomed by the fact that he is in a tragic play (Romeo & Juliet), says this to Romeo trying to teach him that rushing into actions without proper vetting can lead to mistakes and irreparable damage.

Again, sound familiar?

“Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”

A character named Saye “says” this in Henry VI, Part 2 which is not read by many people but was a popular play of Shakespeare’s while he lived.

Think about how much could have been saved if our lawmakers really researched their “re-forming” efforts before rashly enacting them.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

If you read Romeo & Juliet closely, you will see that Juliet is the intellectual one of the two. And she is right with this quote on so many levels. Calling NC’s “Opportunity Grants” as a road to provide quality education doesn’t change the fact that they are weak vouchers. Calling charter schools “public schools” doesn’t change that fact that they act under a different set of rules than traditional schools. Calling the new Innovative School District a means to fix failing schools doesn’t change the fact that it is a movement to privatize public education.

That “rose” still smells.

“Lord, what fools these mortals be.”

Robin Goodfellow, otherwise known as Puck, the henchman for the king of the fairies (Oberon), makes this poignant observation while watching the hilarious circus of humans in the forest during Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Makes you wonder how we will see these reform efforts and their effects when all of this is said and done.

But if you really understand Shakespeare, you know that his plays were so accessible to all Elizabethan people, especially those in the working classes and those who were not given opportunities to receive schooling. He spoke to all people.

Quality public schooling should be as accessible as Shakespeare was and still is.

If you braved the cold temps in January and attended the Class Size Chaos Rally in Raleigh, you probably ran into Jen Mangrum. She was there to lend support.

If you came to the May 16th Rally and March, then you probably came within feet of her. She was there.

Mangrum is an educator. In fact, she is an educator of educators and is the daughter of … yes … educators. In the times that I have been in her company, I have found her accessible, compassionate, and straightforward.

She is the candidate whom Phil Berger will not debate. Even when his current district map was not declared gerrymandered, it was redrawn to exclude the part with Guilford County to include three red-leaning counties.

Recently, a judicial board ruled her ineligible to run in District 30. Supposedly a challenge was issued on her residency by a rather eager “resident.” Reading about what happened in the initial judicial board hearing seemed more like a script from a movie. She is appealing the decision and is willing to go to the state Supreme Court.

A recent News & Observer  article entitled “Much feared Sen. Berger faces a fearless newcomer” by Ned Barnett gives a glimpse into what might be the most important state election this year.

It surely shows that Berger is not as untouchable as he appeared to be at one time.

When 20,000 public school teachers and advocates showed up in Raleigh on May 16th, Berger and Tim Moore pushed the budget into a “nuclear” option to keep any debate and amendments from entering the process. Many speculate that it was because Berger and Moore wanted to avoid having to talk about public education openly.

Now a teacher is after his seat in the NC General Assembly.

Per Barnett:

Berger’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but aspects of this race make him look like the skittish one. Mangrum announced her intention to challenge him more than a year ago, but when a new court-ordered map of legislative districts was unveiled in August of 2017, the Guilford County portion of Berger’s district – the portion where Mangrum lived – was gone.

Mangrum, the daughter of a Marine who served in three wars, decided to take the fight to Berger. She rented a home in Reidsville inside the newly-drawn District 30 and, having recently separated from her husband, declared Reidsville her new home a month before the Feb. 28 filing deadline (http://amp.newsobserver.com/opinion/article213216689.html).

To say that Phil Berger is the most powerful politician in North Carolina is not an overstatement to many people. But he seems to want to avoid Mangrum. She has openly invited him to debate. He has not responded.

If you can in any way, please support Jen Mangrum and all of the other pro-public education candidates like Terri LeGrand and Natasha Marcus.

 

 

 

When Duke University’s Children’s Law Center’s released its March 2017 report called SCHOOL VOUCHERS IN NORTH CAROLINA : THE FIRST THREE YEARS one of the most glaring aspects of the program was how many vouchers were being used at religiously affiliated schools.

Some of the observations of the study included:

• Approximately 93% of the vouchers have been used to pay tuition at religious schools (3).
• The North Carolina voucher program is well designed to promote parental choice, especially for parents who prefer religious education for their children (3).
• Of the participating schools, less than 20% were secular schools; more than 80% were religious schools. This does not line up exactly with the percentages of vouchers used at religious schools versus secular schools (93% at religious schools), because several religious schools enrolled large numbers of students (8).

The entire report can be found here:  https://law.duke.edu/childedlaw/School_Vouchers_NC.pdf.

Many public school advocates, especially the teacher who writes this blog, have argued that the Opportunity Grants are a detriment to public schools in that it takes public money meant for public schools and gives it to private, unregulated entities which can practice admission standards that would never be allowed in public schools and can offer curricula that is not aligned with preparing students for 21st success.

It also strikes this teacher that 93% of vouchers used in NC when the Duke study was published goes to entities that are affiliated with churches and are probably housed in churches that do not have to give tax dollars due to religious exemptions.

In Texas, there is a group of religious leaders who have formed a rather formidable presence in the state called Pastors for Texas Children (http://pastorsfortexaschildren.com/). And they are pro-public education! And they have been very influential. Dr. Diane Ravitch frequently talks of them in her iconic blog. They are against vouchers and other efforts of privatization. And they are active.

Apparently, North Carolina is seeing a similar movement. It’s called North Carolina Faith Leaders for Public Education. From a recent article:

The group’s mission is to address problems such as underfunded public schools and programs. 

Allison Mahaley chairs the organization’s public education committee and says the hope is the needs faith communities currently address can be dealt with at their root.

“What we want them to do is to keep doing that work, but to also realize that unless we advocate for changes in the public school at the policy level, there’s no end to the charity that will be required,” she states (https://www.publicnewsservice.org/2018-06-18/education/the-good-book-supports-public-education-say-church-leaders/a62926-1).

They even have a billboard on I-40 near Faison:

Amen!

 

(1) General and uniform system: term. The General Assembly shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of free public schools, which shall be maintained at least nine months in every year, and wherein equal opportunities shall be provided for all students.  – NC State Constitution.

There is one thing that the current powers in the North Carolina General Assembly fear most.

It is not unclean water.
It is not a budget deficit.
It sure as hell isn’t climate change.
It’s not even maps, although all of those weigh in the equation.

It is having a well-educated general public – one that would not allow current lawmakers to be in a position of power to continue to promote an agenda that absolutely favors a few over those they should be helping. And their actions over these last four to five years have been a recipe in ensuring their policies remain intact.

Many of those have been very apparent. There is the current debacle of gerrymandered legislative districts. Even the redrawn maps have shown a more-than-obsessive addiction to hold on to majorities in Raleigh.

There is the voter-ID law that was struck down in the judicial system. A determined effort to water down minority voices might have been one of the most open secrets in this state.

But those unconstitutional actions coincided with other egregious acts that have weakened public education to a breaking point – one that makes next year’s elections so very important. Those actions have been assaults on public schools coated with a layer of propaganda that keeps telling North Carolinians that we need to keep reforming public education.

What once was considered one of the most progressive and strongest public school systems in the South and the nation all of a sudden needed to be reformed? What necessitated that? Who made that decision? Look to the lawmakers who saw public education and the allotted budgeting for public education dictated by the state constitution as an untapped reservoir of money to funnel to private entities.

The public started to see test scores that appeared to be less than desirable even though what was being tested and the format of the testing was in constant flux.

The public started to see “school performance grades” that did nothing more than track how poverty affected student achievement. The “schools were failing” to actually help cover up what lawmakers were refusing to do to help people before they even had a chance to succeed in the classroom.

The teaching profession was beginning to be shaped by a business model that does not discern a public service from a profit minded investment scheme which changed a profession of professionals into one that favors short term contractors.

But there are two large indicators that voters in North Carolina should really pay attention to when it comes to the NCGA’s relentless pursuit to quell their fears of a well-educated general public – money spent per pupil and tuition costs to state supported universities.

Below is one of many different data tables that shows how willfully the NCGA has made sure to keep public schools from thriving (from  the NC Justice Center’s July 2016 analysis).

And how that per pupil expenditure truly affects schools becomes even clearer when you read reporting that clearly shows how funds are used (and stretched) by school systems. Take Kris Nordstrom’s piece entitled “As new school year commences, shortage of basic supplies demonstrates legislature’s failure to invest” (http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2017/08/29/new-school-year-commences-shortage-basic-supplies-demonstrates-legislatures-failure-invest/).

This table should be easy to decipher.

Simply put, this is a great example of truth-telling and an equally fantastic exposure of the very fear that the NCGA has of thriving public schools. Nordstrom states,

“When adjusting for enrollment and inflation, school funding has been cut in the following areas since leadership of the General Assembly switched hands in 2010 (a time period in which the state was already struggling to find resources as a result of the Great Recession): classroom teachers, instructional support personnel (counselors, nurses, librarians, etc.), school building administrators (principals and assistant principals), teacher assistants, transportation, low wealth schools, disadvantaged students, central office, limited English proficiency, academically gifted, small counties, driver training, and school technology. Funding streams for teacher professional development and mentoring of beginning teachers have been eliminated completely.”

• Don’t we have a state surplus?
• Don’t we spend millions on validate vouchers that have shown no improvement in student outcome?
• Don’t we spend millions in legal fees defending laws that are unconstitutional?

The answer is “YES” to all of these.

Remember, our lawmakers are bragging that we are economically thriving. So who is profiting?

The Pew Research Center for U.S. Politics & Policy conducted a national survey on the attitudes on whether higher education has had a positive or negative effect on our country (http://www.people-press.org/2017/07/10/sharp-partisan-divisions-in-views-of-national-institutions/). It’s rather disturbing.

More disturbing is that it is not surprising.

While one might think that Joel Osteen’s antics to protect his tax exempt megachurch from actually serving the Houston public in a Christ-like fashion during the devastating 2017hurricane would change the first set of data points, it is the last category that is the focus here.

Inside Higher Ed highlighted the Pew survey. Paul Fain in his report opened up with this:

“In dramatic shift, more than half of Republicans now say colleges have a negative impact on the U.S., with wealthier, older and more educated Republicans being least positive”(https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/07/11/dramatic-shift-most-republicans-now-say-colleges-have-negative-impact).

Might want to see who controls policy in Raleigh.

And those “wealthier, older, and more educated Republicans” who are in control in Raleigh have also enabled state-supported colleges and universities to become more expensive.

At the beginning of last year, WUNC published a report called “Incoming UNC Students Likely To See Tuition Increase” (http://wunc.org/post/incoming-unc-students-likely-see-tuition-increase#stream/0). In it there is a data table that shows the steady and steep increase in tuition costs for UNC undergraduate resident tuition.

And yes, we are still a bargain compared to other states, but that is an over 70% increase that does not include housing, board, food, supplies, books, travel, and all of the other expenses sure to accompany a college experience.

Is it supposed to make sense that rising tuition costs should accompany lower per-pupil expenditure in public secondary schools all the while boasting of a state surplus in a state that currently has racially gerrymandered legislative districts and an increased investment in a rather robust effort to privatize public schools?

Apparently “yes” to many in Raleigh.

Which is why they say “no” so often to people.

The term “status quo” has become something of a nebulous term for public education and has evolved into a powerful logical fallacy used by reformers and politicians.

Consider the following:

“The heat is already intense not just because it involves the future of our children but also because a lot of money is at stake. Essentially, it’s a debate between those in the education establishment who support the status quo because they have a financial stake in the system and those who seek to challenge the status quo because it’s not serving kids well.” – Mitt Romney in the Washington Post, January 6, 2017.

“We just can’t accept the status quo in education anymore.” – Sen. Joe Lieberman at DeVos hearing, January 16, 2017.

Asked by George Stephanopoulos what the single most important thing teachers could do to ensure the success of the Common Core, Gates’ answer was simple: The status quo must go. “Grasping the standards requires more than just the standards being present themselves, and disrupting the status quo is key to maximizing individual attention available to each student to ensure their success.”– “Bill Gates: Common Core misunderstood by opponents” (http://www.educationdive.com/news/bill-gates-common-core-misunderstood-by-opponents/239635/).

The above three quotes have one term in common – “status quo”.

The above three quotes also state that the “status quo” of public education is not acceptable and there must be changed.

Except, what really is the “status quo?”

What Romney, Lieberman, and Gates consider the “status quo” is intrinsically linked to a final product, measured by standardized testing and other mercurial measurements.

However, the real “status quo” is not really linked to that final product. It is more a reflection of the constant infusion of reform models that have altered the process by which public schools have been able to teach our children. The truth is that the existing state of public education is always being subjected to scrutiny, modification, alteration, and change from outside forces for political or profit-minded reasons.

What I would consider the “status quo” is the commitment to flux and change to the variables that measure student achievement and school success by people outside of the actual education process. And in that regard, I do agree that the status quo should change.

Again and again each has misinterpreted the situation of public education because there really has been no “status quo” in public education. If anything, the terrain of public education has been in a state of constant flux for the past thirty years. With the “Nation at Risk” report to “No Child Left Behind” to the advent of high stakes testing to the innumerable business models infused into education to “Race to the Top” to Common Core to charter school movement to vouchers, the thought of even calling what we have had in our country “status quo” is not just wrong –

It’s ignorant. And it is purposefully done.

And all of those causes in the change to the “status quo” were not necessarily brought by educators as much as by politicians and business leaders, titles that the three gentlemen mentioned before wear. And the very actions that have caused their version “status quo” are allowing politicians to blame public education for failing to hit targets that are constantly moving or in many cases invisible so that “leaders” and reformers can come and claim to save the day.

That’s how we get Betsy DeVos, the most unqualified candidate for secretary of education, as an appointee of a president who touts his business acumen.

That’s how we get Mark Johnson as a state superintendent – a man who spent less time preparing to be and actually being a teacher than many teachers spent just in teacher education.

If one were to simply look at all of the initiatives introduced into public education (both nationally and state-based) while considering changes in curriculum and requirements, that person would see an ever changing landscape.

If one were to track all of the tests that have been constructed, graded, and disseminated by “experts” outside of public education, that person would see that measurements that grade students and schools are like invisible targets constantly being moved without any warning.

Ironically, the conversation about changing the “status-quo” in public education has been fueled more by the business world and politicians who have been altering the terrain of public education with “reforms.”

When entities like the Gates Foundation, the Walton Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the American Federation of Children, the American Legislation Exchange Council (ALEC), think tanks, and other PAC’s are constantly promoting reforms in public schools, the idea that there is a “status quo” becomes implausible.

There are too many people intentionally stirring the pot of public education and then complaining that something else should be added to the mix.

A Nation at Risk, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Every Student Succeeds Act, Common Core, SAT, ACT, standardized tests, achievement gap, graduation rates, merit pay, charter schools, parent triggers, vouchers, value added-measurements, virtual schools, Teach For America, formal evaluations – there are so many variables, initiatives, and measurements that constantly change without consistency which all affect public schools and how the public perceives those schools.

If there is any “status quo” associated with the public schools, it’s that there are always outside forces acting on the public school system which seek to show that they are failing our kids.

That’s the status quo that should not be accepted.

When you are the North Carolina General Assembly and you want to stop a string of court decisions that have declared your unconstitutional acts “unconstitutional,” then you change the judicial system in your favor. Or at least try.

When you are the North Carolina General Assembly and you want to remain in power on West Jones Street even when a majority of the political landscape does not favor your policies, then you create gerrymandered districts and discriminatory Voter ID laws.

And when you are the North Carolina General Assembly that is trying to privatize the public school system, you undertake a series of actions that weaken public schools such as school performance grades aligned with achievement, intentionally not fully fund schools, create class size caps with no funding of new classrooms, and throw millions of dollars into vouchers.

You try and disenchant the teaching profession by removing due-process rights and graduate degree pay from new teachers to a point where state education programs have experienced a significant drop in candidates.

And yet public schools are still doing the job.

So what do you do now? You change the rules. You change the criteria of measurements.

You simply change the playing field – all to create the illusion that public schools are failing.

For the last three years, schools in our state have been measured with school performance grades, a system adopted from Florida developed by the Jeb Bush administration with the intent on creating a false situation that public schools are failing.

Much of a school’s performance grade is determined by a school’s “achievement score:” a series of indicators put into an algorithmic formula to calculate a score that is then put into another formula to then determine a school performance grade.

For high schools the following was used to define a school’s achievement score this past year:

High schools will use the following indicators to calculate the achievement score:

• End-of-Course Math I
• End-of-Course English II
• End-of-Course Biology
• The ACT (percent of students who score 17 or above – UNC System’s minimum composite score requirement)
• ACT WorkKeys (percent of students who achieve a Silver Certificate or better)
• Math Course Rigor (percent of students who successfully complete Math III)
• 4-year Graduation Rate (percent of students who graduate in four years)

Again, when calculating the achievement score for each indicator, the percent of students who meet the standard is divided by the total number of students for that indicator. To get the total School Achievement Score, the total number of scores or benchmarks meeting the standard for all indicators is added and then divided by the total number of scores or benchmarks for all indicators (from 2014 READY ACCOUNTABILITY BACKGROUND BRIEF SUPPLEMENT: North Carolina School Performance Grades – http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/accountability/reporting/spgbckgrndpack15.pdf).

Of course, it does not consider the socio-economics that students live in, but the scores certainly reflect it.

So, to guarantee that this school year’s scores will not be as good as last year’s, the North Carolina General Assembly is changing the rules, or rather the indicators. Since science departments have been doing so well with preparing students for the Biology EOC, that indicator will no longer be used.

That’s right. A state that is pushing STEM education to a point that “specials” are being threatened, the Biology EOC is not considered a “good” indication of school achievement.

Why drop Biology from the indicator list? Because that’s the one we as a state do best on. Simply check out the NC School Report Card Site. Look at your own district and it will be compared to the state averages. My school system from 2016-2017 is below.

To be proficient, a student must reach Level 3 at a minimum. Look at the state figures and in parentheses next them are the district averages.

Those who scored 3,4,5 in Reading (English) was %60.7 (58.2).

For Math – 64.8 (62.6).

For Biology – 56.2 (57.9).

The only one where the district outperforms the stat average is Biology. That will hurt the report for my district. Furthermore, it only allows for two scores to balance out each other and not three.

Try telling a student that you will not be using the grade he did best on according to the class average in his final average. Well, that’s what the state is doing to many districts.

It’s almost as if the NCGA saw that schools were doing too well and being too successful that it necessitated some sort of action to counteract that “growth” to help substantiate the need for all of the unregulated reforms.

With the removal of the BIOLOGY EOC indicator, school achievement scores will go down for many districts; therefore, school report cards will go down as well as school performance grades.

Add to that, the increased reliance on ACT scores. As relayed in an earlier post:

But now in the coming year, the ACT is about to become the most “important test” that will be given in all of North Carolina high schools. That is thanks to CCRGAP, or the Career and College Ready Graduate Alignment Partnership.

It cannot be helped that taking out a “C” and the “G” from the acronym gives us “CRAP” was not noticed.

According to Section 10.13 of S.L. 2015-241 (and a presentation found created by the NC Community Colleges),

What this is saying is that if any high school junior does not make a certain score on the ACT (or its particular subject areas), then they must go through remediation during their senior year using a curriculum chosen/designed by a local community college but delivered by the high school teachers within already prescribed core courses.

In short, teachers would have to take time in their already crowded and time-constrained classes to deliver more curriculum.  No extra time will be given. Curriculum standards for the actual classes still have to be met. Why? Because there will be a test for them.

Debate over what scores will be the threshold for whether a student must be remediated maybe just starting. What was reported to this teacher in a professional development workshop was the following:

GPA of 2.6 -or- 18 on English and 22 on Reading (https://caffeinatedrage.com/2017/10/01/we-should-not-allow-the-act-to-have-this-much-power-over-our-schools/).

Let’s add to that. School report cards will now not only have one grade. It will have a multitude of them: a grade for each student population break down. It would take a textbook to show how that alone would allow the NCGA and DPI to use cursory grades to confuse the public about the effectiveness of a school. Imagine if there are 10 students identified within a certain “subset.” One student did not show up for the test and two students do not meet proficiency even though the students are identified by an IEP which highlights particular learning disabilities that are exacerbated by standardized tests. Seven out of ten of those students passed, but the report card for the school may reflect a letter grade lower than a “B” for that “subset.”

The state seems unwilling to explain why the sudden change in how schools are now measured, so the state probably will not go out of its way to explain fully what each subset report card score actually communicates.

Actually, the state is being willingly unwilling to explain.

Is it not also interesting that the new principal pay system is now linked to school performance? These new parameters to ensure lower school achievement scores will translate into lower school performance scores, hence a more “controlled” way of paying principals. If BESTNC, who brokered this new flawed principal pay system, did not know about this change in how schools are to be graded, then every school in North Carolina will be receiving a “B” or higher.

But we know better.

In a day when our General Assembly wants to use performance incentives and merit-based pay scales, it is rather obvious that they will also redefine what performance is and what merits actually receive the most “reward.”

So, what has our State School Superintendent said about all of this?

Nothing.

At least his “performance score” will not get any lower.

But teachers will continue to do the very job of educating students DESPITE what lawmakers do. They understand that the constant change in measuring public schools does not reflect that schools are failing.

It reflects that lawmakers are failing.

Remember Michelle Rhee’s visit to North Carolina last year for a “closed-door” meeting (February 7^th  ,2017) with lawmakers brokered by an educational lobbying body of business leaders called BEST NC (coupled with the NC GOP’s invitation to Betsy DeVos who had just been confirmed as Trump’s secretary of education)?

It was another ominous omen of what has been and will continue to be attempted in North Carolina – the further privatization of public education in North Carolina.

That meeting with Rhee that was passed off as a session with leaders where candid questions could be asked and ideas exchanged on how to improve public education seemed to be void of the very people who know education the best – public school educators. The media did have a brief chance to meet and greet with Ms. Rhee and George Parker in a manicured and measured way, but what happened behind closed doors with people who make decisions on how to spend taxpayer money and fund public schools along with controversial educational reformers remains a mystery.

In fact, it seemed more like a special session of the NC General Assembly who used such “secret sessions” to spawn actions such as HB2, SB4, and HB17 (the latter two soon after Mark Johnson was elected as NC State Superintendent).

Despite what they claim, the intentions of BEST NC and other “reformers” to improve public education seems to have a different meaning to them than it does to those who are educators in our public schools.

That’s because there exist too many relationships between business leaders, lobbying groups, wealthy benefactors, politicians, and educational reformers to be coincidental. In fact, many in the “reform” movement that have started to dismantle the public school system are strategically linked to each other both outside of the state and inside.

Look at the graphic below:

That is a diagram of the relationships between entities that many public school advocates deem as detrimental to our public school system. It’s very busy and probably confusing. It’s supposed to be.

Consider the following national entities:

• Teach For America
• Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
• Walton Family Foundation
• Eli Broad Foundation
• KIPP Charter Schools
• Democrats For Educational Reform
• Educational Reform Now
• StudentsFirst
• America Succeeds
• 50CAN
• American Legislative Exchange Council
• National Heritage Academies
• Charter School USA
• Team CFA
• American Federation for Children

Somehow, someway all of the bulleted entities above have been at play in North Carolina even before that meeting with Michelle Rhee and BEST NC which took place literally days after Betsy DeVos was confirmed as secretary of education thanks to the first ever tie-breaking vote by a vice-president for a cabinet position.

They continue to be at play, more so now than ever before. And other are joining in thus making this document a work in progress.

If you are willing, simply follow the explanation below because what seems to be a simple meeting that took place in February of 2017 was just another step in the GOP-led NC General Assembly to dismantle public education and finance the privatization of schooling.

First, consider the national scene.

In 2014 a teacher/researcher named Mercedes Schneider published an informative book called A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Education. What Schneider did was literally research and report on all of the bodies of influence that were applying forces on the landscape of public education for the benefit of political and capitalistic gain.

The fact that she is a teacher, product of public schools from southern Louisiana, a trained researcher, a survivor of Katrina, and a residential expert of the charter takeover in New Orleans, she has a unique perspective and an educated point of view.

Chapter 17 of the book is dedicated to the Democrats For Educational Reform and the Educational Reform Now groups (DFER and ERN).

DFER supports vouchers, union busting and other reform measures that are common in other reform circles, but they are (to summarize Schneider) not “non-profit.” What makes them powerful is that they have the word “Democrat” in their name and it allows them to literally “train” democrats into accepting and advancing a protocol that actually is more conservative in nature – initiatives that align with school choice and charter movements. Schneider talks about in pages 276-279 how the DFER even promoted “mayoral control and charter favoritism.”

It may seem a little bit like conspiracy theory, but it does make sense. Why? Because DFER is non-profit and has the word “Democrat” in it and therefore does not get the big time donations from conservative donators.

Or do they?

DFER is run mostly by hedge-fund managers. One of them is Whitney Tilson, who happens to be a Teach For America alumnus and a vice-chair of New York’s KIPP charters. He also sits on the board of DFER. That alone links DFER, KIPP, and TFA (p.278).

At least in 2013, DFER had an Executive Director named Joe Williams. He just happened to “also head another reform group, this one actually is classed as a ‘nonprofit,’ and it doesn’t have the D-word in its title.”  Education Reform Now (ERN) is a “democratic” body understood to be a “sister entity” to DFER (p.279).

By 2010, ERN counted the Broad Foundation and the Walton Foundation as donors. “ERNenables hedge-fund managers to quietly donate to Democrats advancing the privatization agenda…. Looks like the big Republican money is available to DFER, after all – through its ERN back door” (p.279).

More from Schneider:

• Remember that Whitney Tilson is also a founding member of Teach For America along with Wendy Kopp. Kopp was the mentor of Michelle Rhee. Their ventures literally share the same circulatory system.
• Tilson sits on the KIPP board and sits on the DFER board.
• Kopp sits on the Broad Foundation Board which feeds money to ERN who in turn feeds DFER. Kopp is also married to Richard Barth, the CEO of KIPP Foundation.
• DFER through ERN conducts business with StudentsFirst, founded by Michelle Rhee.
• Tilson, Kopp, and Rhee are TFA alums.

BEST NC, based in Raleigh and architects of the recent controversial principal play program in the state, is affiliated with an outfit named America Succeeds that feeds and supports various “reform” groups within certain states that bring together powerful business leaders to push “educational reform.” Look at the following article: – http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/03/13065/how-dfer-leaders-channel-out-state-dark-money-colorado-and-beyond. The title alone alludes to the ability for DFER to channel “dark” money to out of state entities that promote anti-union, pro-charter, voucher supporting measures. It shows something interesting.

• America Succeeds’s address in Colorado is 1390 Lawrence Street in Denver.
• DFER’s Colorado office is located on 1390 Lawrence Street in Denver.
• KIPP’s Denver charter schools are headquartered in Denver. At 1390 Lawrence Street.

Seems that TFA, StudentsFirst, DFER, ERN, KIPP are about as incestuously linked as a Greek god family tree and it is feeding support to groups like BEST NC who just happens to be the Carolina affiliate of America Succeeds.

Think about it. North Carolina is an ideal target. Why? Because of the following conditions:

• Right-to-work state.
• Elimination of due-process rights.
• Removal of caps for number of charter schools which are not regulated.
• GOP controlled state assembly.
• Opportunity Grants increasing.
• Push for merit pay.
• The new state superintendent is a TFA alumnus – Mark Johnson.

Part of that national scene includes three charter school chains.

National Heritage Academies is based in Michigan in the same state where Betsy DeVosbegan her quest to privatize public education. They’ve enabled each other. National Heritage Academies has 11 schools in North Carolina. One of them is Greensboro Academy. On the board of that school is Alan Harkes who sits on the Charter School Advisory Board of North Carolina. That’s convenient.

Betsy DeVos is also the founder of a school choice advocacy group in Washington D.C. called the American Federation For Children. On February 15^th, 2018 Darrell Allison who was for years the head of the Parents For Educational Freedom in North Carolina, was chosen to assume a leadership position with AFC.

Team CFA is based in Oregon. John Bryan, the founder of the Team CFA, has been donating money left and right to specific politicians and PAC’s here in North Carolina to extend the charter industry including Lt. Gov. Dan Forest (through a PAC). He spear-headed an attempt to win the contract of the ISD school in Robeson that was recently given a green light with Dr. Eric Hall as the superintendent. He would report straight to Mark Johnson under provisions of HB4. (http://amp.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article177836091.html).

Charter Schools USA is based in Ft. Lauderdale. It is run by Jonathan Hage whose political contribution to politicians in North Carolina are rather numerous.

Now consider North Carolina.

Those numbers correspond to:

1. North Carolina General Assembly
2. Charter School Advisory Board and State Board of Education
3. Civitas Institute
4. John Locke Foundation
5. BEST NC
6. SAS
7. State Supt. Mark Johnson
8. Gov. Dan Forest
9. Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina
10. Carolina CAN
11. Jason Saine
12. Jerry Tillman
13. Innovative School District
14. Bill Rabon
15. Trinity Christian School
16. David Curtis

Go back to Charter Schools USA.

Below is a screen shot from followthemoney.org which tracks campaign contributions to political candidates (https://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=14298646). Here is a list of candidates who have received money from Hage in NC.

• There’s Jerry Tillman, the former public school administrator who is a champion for opaque charter school regulation. He’s #12 on the state map.
• And there’s Jason Saine who loves charters as well. He’s #11 on the state map.
• There’s David Curtis, who loves charters as well. He’s #16 on the state map.
• There’s Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, who sits on the state school board and lambasted DPI under Dr. June Atkinson for its report on charter schools that said they were disproportionally representing populations. He’s #8 on the state map. It is also worth noting that Forest is also on the state board of education and is ramping up for a run at the governor’s mansion in 2020.
• There’s Bill Rabon, who stalled the HB13 bill in the Senate. That’s the bill that would have been a clean fix of the class size mandate that was replaced with a poison pill called HB90. He’s #14 on the state map.

Furthermore, Jason Saine has just been named the new National Chairman of ALEC and is helping to open yet another charter school called West Lake Preparatory school that is affiliated with Charter Schools USA – https://caffeinatedrage.com/2016/12/08/open-letter-to-rep-jason-saine-youre-a-state-representative-fight-for-all-public-schools-not-a-new-charter-school/.

Brenda Berg who is the CEO of BEST NC has increasingly brokered working relationships with many entities that have targeted public schools – John Locke Foundation being one.

BEST NC’s VP is Julie Kowal, who at one time was the Executive Director of CarolinaCan, which is the NC chapter of an outfit called 50CAN, a national “advocacy group” that just a few years ago merged with another entity: StudentsFirst: https://studentsfirst.org/pages/50can-and-studentsfirst-merge-strengthen-support-local-education-leaders-across-country. StudentsFirst was started by Michelle Rhee.

Additionally, Mark Johnson was granted a massive amount of power over public education through House Bill 17 and Senate Bill 4 (HB17 &SB4), power over charter schools, and the control of the Innovative School District and has retained the services of ex-Pat McCrory aids who possibly were enabled by other McCrory cronies, such as Art Pope who is linked to the American Legislative Exchange Council, otherwise known as ALEC. Art Pope is also part of the aforementioned John Locke Foundation.

The North Carolina General Assembly has backed Johnson with money and resources to fight the state board of education in a rather long-timed lawsuit thus showing he NCGA’s loyalty to Johnson and not the state board. Furthermore, it has reduced DPI’s budget significantly and allowed Johnson to hire people loyal to him including a former official with the Mississippi Charter Schools (#14 on national map) as a high ranking person in DPI.

And Mark Johnson is an admirer of Betsy DeVos. When interviewed by the Charlotte Observer for a Jan. 27^th, 2017 feature Johnson expressed his support for the neophyte DeVos.

When asked about her, Johnson didn’t hesitate: “I support her.”

It’s not ironic that Betsy DeVos is also associated with ALEC. From sourcewatch.com it is learned that DeVos has “bankrolled the 501 (c) (4) group the American Federation for Children, the 501 (c) (3) group Alliance for School Choice and by having these groups participate in and fund the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).”

And remember that Darrell Allison who served as president of the Parents For Educational Freedom in North Carolina for the past few years will now be a director in DeVos’s American Federation for Children. Allison still plans on being based in North Carolina.

Oh, Allison is also on the UNC Board of Governors. He will remain in that capacity. So a man who has influence over the state’s university system is employed by national school choice advocacy group founded by the current secretary of education that feeds funds to ALEC, an organization that just named a NC lawmaker (Jason Saine) as its national chairman.

All of these connections seem more than coincidence and this perfect storm of timing, state politics, gerrymandering, and people in power can’t just be by chance. Could it?

So where are the teachers in this dialogue? The schools of education in one of the best college systems in the nation and from some of the highest ranking private schools in the country?

Well many teachers have been represented by groups like NCAE (which is an association and not a union). Multiple times the NC General Assembly has tried to weaken any group like NCAE through stopping automatic dues payments and other things such as what the Civitas Institute tried to do here – luring teachers in NCAE to “buy” their membership back.

Remember this?

That website was established by the Civitas Institute, which was founded by Art Pope. It showed NCAE members how to withdraw their membership in NCAE and make $450 because that is what they would not be spending in dues.

Now look at that first map again:

Hopefully, it makes a little more sense.

The NC GOP has been very instrumental in the following actions:

• Removal of due-process rights
• Graduate Degree Pay Bumps Removed
• Standard 6
• “Average” Raises
• Less Money Spent per Pupil
• Remove Caps on Class Sizes
• Jeb Bush School Grading System
• Cutting Teacher Assistants
• Opportunity Grants
• Virtual Schools
• Reduction of Teacher Candidates in Colleges
• Elimination of Teaching Fellows Program and reinvention in a different entity.

Also look at this timeline:

• Art Pope became McCrory’s budget director – 2013
• Graduate Degree Pay Bumps Eliminated – 2013
• 50Can created CarolinaCan – 2013
• School Performance Grades – 2013
• Due-process rights taken from new teachers – started in 2013
• Charter school cap in NC lifted – 2014, but proposed in 2013.
• Opportunity Grants (vouchers) – 2014

Now consider SAS, a software company whose president, James Goodnight, is married to one of the founders and current Board Member of BEST NC, Anne Goodnight. Mrs. Goodnight was also one of the founders of Cary Academy, a rather prestigious private school in the Triangle area.

In a data-driven, educational-reform era that seems to crunch and use data to position evidence that supports their claims, it would make sense to align with SAS, an “American multinational developer of analytics software based in Cary, North Carolina. SAS develops and markets a suite of analytics software, which helps access, manage, analyze and report on data to aid in decision-making” (Wikipedia).

SAS controls the EVAAS software system. It is used by the state to measure teacher effectiveness. It uses rather surreptitious methods and secret algorithms to calculate its data – https://caffeinatedrage.com/2017/11/26/why-teachers-should-be-wary-of-evaas-and-sas/.

What has happened is that much of what should be “public” in the North Carolina school system is now being guided by non-public entities.

And we in NC get this:

Simply put, the privatization of the public school system.