This week State Superintendent Mark Johnson launched a new website totally devoted to him alone as someone filling the seat for the state's top public school official: www.ncsuperintendent.com. Interestingly, there already is an established website for the Department of Public Instruction: http://www.ncpublicschools.org/. Notice that one is ".org." The other is ".com." And that raises a series of questions … Continue reading Made of Hubris and Political Ambition- Mark Johnson’s New Website www.ncsuperintendent.com

Just because schools may not be having classes for students this Thursday and Friday does not mean that schools will necessarily be closed. Some will be serving a role that is invaluable to the community that goes beyond the classroom. If you read anything about evacuation shelters in places like Houston and Florida last year, … Continue reading Those Schools That Will Serve As Shelters From Florence Are All “High-Performing” – No Secret Algorithm Needed for That

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 … Continue reading Those Schools Are Not Low Performing; Our Policy Makers Are : Raleigh’s Amorphous Way of Measuring Schools

Last year when DPI released the school performance grades for the state included in the report was a data table that showed a correlation between poverty levels and school letter grades received. Here's a table detailing the link between these grades and poverty levels from 2015–16 Performance and Growth of North Carolina Public Schools Executive Summary, … Continue reading The One Data Chart Left Out Of The State School Performance Grade Report

Last week when school performance grades were released, State Superintendent Mark Johnson again bemoaned the "status quo." He said, "When you use status quo strategies, you get status quo results." Would Johnson make that applicable to the virtual charter schools that have repeatedly under-performed here in NC? From the Greensboro News & Record this past … Continue reading Mark Johnson’s Politically Convenient Double-Standard Concerning For-Profit Virtual Charter Schools in NC

Early in the fall of 2016, I was asked to do a panel discussion on public education at UNC-Charlotte with a variety of other stakeholders in the state. There were teachers, social activists, think tank reps, and a couple of advocacy groups. At one point in the conversation, a representative from a well-known libertarian think … Continue reading Someone Please Tell Sen. Berger and Rep. Moore That Public Education is a Common Good, Not a Consumer Product

Political leanings and lenses aside, sometimes data can create a picture so vivid that it is really hard to argue against the conclusions. Just like in recent years, the state of North Carolina this week released its school performance grades for the with pretty some changes in the formula but with a similar conclusion. Test … Continue reading The Only Real Conclusion About NC’s School Performance Grades Is That Too Many of Our Students Live In Poverty in a Gerrymandered State

The rumor that Mark Johnson might be preparing a campaign to run for Lt. Governor of North Carolina is not really that new. But since it has been asked officially on a filmed interview (to be aired tonight), it does need some sort of mention because the irony of any possibility that this might be … Continue reading About the Rumor That Our State Superintendent Will Run for Lt. Gov. in 2020

...buying power. On September 5th, the Economic Policy Institute released a new report entitled "The teacher pay penalty has hit a new high." It begins. "Teacher strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Colorado have raised the profile of deteriorating teacher pay as a critical public policy issue. Teachers and parents are … Continue reading Can Phil Berger Explain This? NC Teacher Pay Ranks 49th In the U.S. When Looking at …

Mark Johnson claims that he wants to change the “status quo.” But in reality he wants to protect the “status quo.” In fact, he is the “status quo.” 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. The use … Continue reading Actually State Supt. Johnson, You Are the Damn Status Quo