The teacher licensure / pay proposal that has taken over 18 months to not even get a full rough draft constructed still is based on merit pay. And no matter how many times State Supt. Catherine Truitt tries to spin, redirect, or pivot, she still seems to be in denial that merit does not work. … Continue reading Dammit, Catherine! It’s Still Merit Pay Even If You Say It Isn’t.

The day before the NC State Supreme Court was to hear arguments about funding the LEANDRO case directive last week, State Supt. Catherine Truitt sent out the following tweet (along with other data points). The data is below: Please understand that there is a difference between recurring and nonrecurring funds. Recurring funds means that that … Continue reading Looking At Recurring Vs. Nonrecurring Funds For Public Education

There are no “silver bullets” or “magic pills” when it comes to changing a school. There is no one thing that can be done, no standard blueprint, no Harry Potter spell that can be executed that will make a struggling school turn its fortune around overnight. Rather, transforming schools is a process – one that … Continue reading There Are No “Silver Bullets” or “Magic Pills” in Changing Schools – People Make Schools Work. Invest In Them.

There is no doubt that the new merit pay-based teacher licensure and pay proposal is not beneficial to the teaching profession and the state of North Carolina. When the Department of Public Instruction has to hire a public relations firm whose past includes marketing controversial menthol-infused cigarettes to a certain demographic for a profit to … Continue reading I Don’t Need To Drink DPI’s Kool-Aid To Tell A “Truthful & Authentic” Story About Teaching In NC

Today school performance grades for the 2021-2022 school year were released. The only positive about those school performance grades in relation to the last time they were issued (three years ago) is that the NCGA kept the scale at a 15-point scale instead of what was planned originally for the 2020-2021 school year: making it … Continue reading School Performance Grades Come Out Today – The Gerrymandered NCGA’s Continued Use Of Poverty To Drive “School Choice”

An explanation of how a smaller piece of the revenue pie is funding public schools because money is being siphoned off to other "initiative" such as: Charter SchoolsVouchersTax Breaks to CorporationsSunshine Fund That Has Billions Go back a couple of decades. And about 57-62% of that budget would be directed toward public education in North … Continue reading North Carolina Is Actually Financing Three State School “Systems” – Another Attack On Public Education

The following numbers come from a post by Clayton Henkel at NC Policy Watch today. K-12 students: 1.4 million — Number of public school students in North Carolina returning to class this week 130,000 — Number attending charter schools 126,000 — Number attending charter schools in 2020-2021 160,528 — Number learning in a homeschooling setting (2021-22 school year) 14,408 — … Continue reading Two Days Until LEANDRO Hearing: A Look At Some Numbers

It's funny that our state superintendent post the following tweet in response to President Biden's announcement of college loan forgiveness for many in the nation (and NC). Why? Because it's just highly hypocritical coming from her. Here's the post. That's rich coming from the person who was the initial chancellor of the state's "franchise" of … Continue reading Supt. Truitt Is The Last Person To Criticize College Debt Forgiveness. Why?

If you teach reading or language arts in any capacity in a public school, one of the most dynamic resources you can offer your students is a classroom library. No, not a bookshelf with copies and class sets of school bought books and ancillary materials from past (and now ancient) textbook adoptions. But actual individual … Continue reading The Classroom Library – Getting More Students To Read

Over a course of ten months, North Carolina public school teachers are officially employed for 215 days. Students in North Carolina typically go to school at least 180 days a school year. Most LEA's define a contracted day of work as being eight hours for a teacher. Imagine what would happen if educators only worked … Continue reading What If Teachers Only Worked The Hours They Were Contracted For?