The Legislature in North Carolina is determined to wipe public education out in that once-progressive state.
Read this parent newsletter. It is sad. It is outrageous.
North Carolina is near the bottom of the national barrel in funding its public schools. Teacher salaries are near the bottom nationally. Legislators want charter schools, tax credits, vouchers for special education, vouchers for all.
Why the passion to eliminate the engine of social mobility and economic progress? Why the mad dash back to the past? This won’t be good for education or excellence or equity.
Will Secretary Duncan or President Obama hurry to North Carolina and urge the legislators to stop their assault on public education? The time is now. There is a fierce urgency to now.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I feel it!
What else can we do? Right to work state.
I read your blog to stay informed. I talk about it to people who care. I’ve called and emailed those I can think of to call and email. There has to be a way to catch the attention of these Republicans who are pushing for these changes (as they, in my opinion, try to be like Jeb Bush) and try to get them to get a new role model. I heard on public radio this morning that the proposed tenure model is structured like Colorado. I still don’t understand why all these changes have to take place to begin with and I am so, so sad that NC took RTTT money.
Good things are happening in my school–but I am very aware of the storm clouds. But I honestly don’t know what to do, as I have expressed on your blog several times.
Joanna
Persist. Share info with other teachers. Spread knowledge. Educate. Don’t let them destroy a democratic institution
I just wrote Congressman Berger and asked him to consider our state motto. . .Esse Quam Videri. To be rather than to seem.
I asked him to please let us BE North Carolina rather than seeming like Florida.
I doubt I’ll get a response. I still think the only thing I can really do is continue trying to be the best teacher I can be no matter what changes come. Honestly, I don’t know what else to do.
And. . .
if these things do pass they are ushering in the figurative trailer park era for education in our state. There are people who think it better to abandon an older home for trailers. It happens a lot. But I grew up in a home built in 1826 and now live in one built in 1926 and I prefer that over a trailer (despite the expense of maintaining it and keeping it looking good and safe and comfortable). So what will happen is, if the changes go through, we could have the eventual, figurative era of kids moving from trailer park to trailer park until some charismatic (not in the religious sense) leader makes it in vogue to restore the old homes again (the schools, literally and figuratively) and the gentrification of the trailer park era will begin. I guess. Because I totally see this wave of privatization as leaders trying to be like other leaders they like, instead of really examining how their state works and what the long-term effects are of abandoning homes for trailer parks (in the figurative sense). Someone gentle and appealing to them needs to tell them this. Who?
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Back to teaching. My lunch hour is over.
Duncan and Obama are laughing and having drinks celebrating. This is who they really are. I hear real good, but I see a whole lot better.