Despite (the) warning and the hundreds of millions in grant funding at stake, Democratic legislators in our General Assembly in 2009 blocked several bills that would have raised or lifted our state's charter school cap. As in past years, the problem was that a handful of powerful and well-funded special-interest groups, led by the N.C. Association of Educators, colluded with state education leaders and the Democratic legislative majority to block attempts to raise or lift North Carolina's cap. Legislators in Illinois, Louisiana, Tennessee and California took heed of Duncan's warning and embraced pro-charter laws and policies. The General Assembly chose the business-as-usual route.
My son is four and so I will soon enter that phase of my live that involves his all important primary education. Seeing the state of public schools currently, I think often of alternatives for him.
I don't quite get why our state limits charter schools. I think it is bad policy.
Would you bet $400 million that North Carolina's education laws and policies are among the most innovative and reform-oriented in the country? That's how much the state stands to win as it competes against at least 37 other states for a share of the Obama administration's $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" education grant competition.
But while other states scramble to drop restrictions on charter schools, toughen standards, and adopt new measures of teacher and principal effectiveness to improve their chances of winning a share of the pot, North Carolina's top education leaders are content to stand pat with the hand the state now holds.
For years, students at Bishop McGuinness Catholic High School in Kernersville have been able to earn college credit through courses offered at UNC-Greensboro. That partnership ended this year when students attending nonpublic high schools effectively were shut out of the tax-funded program.
Learn and Earn is a public initiative allowing North Carolina high school students to earn early college credits by taking courses at participating community colleges or online at UNC-Greensboro's iSchool. The state has earned accolades for implementing the program to address high school graduation rates while better preparing all students for higher education and careers in an increasingly competitive job market.
"We have supported the program from day one--when it first began as on-site learning model until it developed online," said Carol London, Director of Counseling Services at Bishop McGuinness.
According to London, controversy arose because nonpublic students were required to pay tuition for the state-funded program, while public school students could participate for free.
JLF's Terry Stoops concludes that our state's school districts are barely making satisfactory marks in their parent-friendly rankings:
RALEIGH — North Carolina school districts earned more C grades and fewer D's in the John Locke Foundation's latest assessment of "parent-friendly" schools. That's a sign of progress to the JLF analyst who graded all 115 public school districts for a new Spotlight report.
"The good news is that the number of overall D grades dropped from 27 school districts to 19 districts this year, while the number of C's climbed from 64 to 75," said Terry Stoops, JLF Education Policy Analyst. "The bad news is that most districts are still earning C's and D's. No district earns an overall A grade, and the number of B's dipped slightly this year from 19 to 17."
North Carolina public school leaders are reworking their budgets after a court ruling that could force them to pay charter schools millions of dollars.
The state Supreme Court this month refused to review an appeals court ruling that said the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system undercounted how much it owed charter schools. School districts with charter schools are supposed to pass along a per student share of local education money to the independent public schools.
Real Education, by Charles Murray Published by Crown Forum $24.95/210 pages
Public education, like most government endeavors, leaves much to be desired. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to name more than a couple of issues more urgent than education reform. Yet, many parents remain unaware of--or worse, indifferent to--the ineffectiveness of public schools. The failure of government-sponsored education can be attributed, in part, to the misguided philosophy that dominates the minds of teachers and administrators. The media, which perpetuates education establishment nonsense, is also partly to blame.
Social scientist and acclaimed author Charles Murray has made a career of butchering sacred cows. Among other works, he co-authored "The Bell Curve," one of the most controversial books in recent decades. Murray, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is eminently qualified to cut through establishment gobbledygook, and he does just that in his latest book, Real Education.
