According to TeachNC on November 3rd of this school year, there were over 8500 vacancies in North Carolina for classroom teachers ALONE. In all, there were over 23,600 vacancies. Just looking at those teacher vacancies – the average salary of a teacher in NC is right under $55,000 a year (according to the report from the … Continue reading Where Has The Money Already Budgeted For Vacant Teacher Positions In NC Been Going For The Last 10 Months?

Those who seek to “reform” public education will all use numbers and figures that portray student achievement in public schools as lagging. They may talk of low student test scores and graduation rates that are not high enough. They may talk about school performance grades and teacher evaluations.  Yet their arguments rely mostly on hazy … Continue reading Test Scores, Student Achievement, & Graduation Rates: Three of the Most “Spun” Terms in Public Education Reform

Remember when we had a state superintendent who wanted to start his tenure with a listening tour? “When I took office as State Superintendent, I embarked on a statewide listening tour to hear directly from educators, parents, and community and business leaders. Now I am able to focus on priorities highlighted by teachers from Murphy … Continue reading A Word About Those “Listening Tours” For The New Teacher Licensure Plan

Interesting that our State Supt. Catherine Truitt would fight to get this $10K diverted from diversity in "pickleball" in Wake County in order to score score some political points and public publicity when she cannot even acknowledfge some other glaring truths. About same time in which she tweeted this... ...this report was released from the … Continue reading “What If Instead Of Focusing On #pickelball,” You Focused On LEANDRO

Literally days after the horrific Uvalde, TX school massacre, the NRA is holding its annual convention right down the road in Houston. And while some noted speakers have cancelled in-person appearances, others have not. That includes former president Trump, Sen. "Schools Should Only Have One Door" Ted Cruz, and ... North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark … Continue reading Dear Mr. Lt. Gov. & State School Board Member Who Hunts For Fake Indoctrinating Witches, Are You Still Speaking At The NRA Convention Today?

As a teacher, I cannot legally give a student an aspirin tablet. My high school has five counselors for over 2400 students. There is one part-time social worker. There is one school psychologist assigned to multiple schools at one time. A school nurse is on campus only one day a week. As a country we … Continue reading Remembering A Time When Lawmakers Wanted To Arm NC Public School Teachers

Interesting that BEST NC "brags" about how many teachers it has recruited into the profession with its efforts through outlets like TEACH NC. And yet BEST NC is not doing anything constructive to help RETAIN our teachers. From that very same TEACH NC website as of this post:

These two data exhibits in the WesrEd Leandro Report paint a vivid picture of what many in this state have been describing for years: the weakening of the teacher pipeline in North Carolina because of policies set by the NCGA. From 2009-10 to 2016-17, the percentage of new teachers who came from the UNC system … Continue reading Now Is The Time To Expand The North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program To Include All NC Public Colleges & Universities – Especially Our HBCU’s

Yes. The primaries are here. And it seems like every political sign that I see on the sides of roads and at interchanges is for one particular race: the local school board. Throw around terms like “CRT,” “learning loss,” “mask mandates,” “indoctrination,” and “transparency,” add to them some righteous anger, and you have some rather … Continue reading To The School Board Candidate Who Knows Nothing About How Schools Really Operate

...then please just drop out of the race. North Carolina has right under 100,000 statewide teaching positions, and according to this morning's count on the TeachNC web page for vacancies , nearly 20% of those positions are not currently filled for next year. So, what is your plan? Imagine those races in areas that are … Continue reading If You’re Running For School Board And Do Not Have A Plan To Address This …