Legislation is advancing in North Carolina that will harm the state’s underfunded public schools and strike a blow against its beleaguered teachers.
North Carolina is a right-to-work state, so there is no collective bargaining, and teachers have no voice in policy decisions about education.
Among the worst of the new bills is a proposal to fund a voucher/tax credit program, removing $90 million from public schools so that 1% of the state’s 1.5 million students may attend private and/or religious schools.
Another bill would strip away due process rights from teachers, so that teachers would have no right to a hearing if fired, no matter how many years of experience they have.
The new legislation would restrict eligibility for preschool, reducing the number of children who may enroll, and remove class size limits for some elementary grades.
Make no mistake (President Obama’s favorite expression, mine too): this legislation will save money in the short run but will cost the state far more in the long term. The Legislature is planning not only to harm public education, but to harm the children who benefit by being in preschool and in classes of reasonable size.
Former Congressman and State Superintendent Bob Etheridge said: “To the folks now running our state government in Raleigh, education reform is just another code word for cut, slash and burn.”
Governor Pat McCrory, who supports the radical anti-teacher, anti-public education agenda, has just named Eric Guckian as his Senior Education Advisor. Guckian was regional director of New Leaders in North Carolina (which recruits “transformational” leaders) and before that, was executive director of Teach for America in the state. He has been a consultant for the Gates Foundation and worked with KIPP. The following comes from the Governor’s press release:
“I am honored and humbled to serve as a member of Governor McCrory’s team,” said Guckian. “This is a critical time for education in our state, and I’m looking forward to working with committed teachers, leaders and community members to ensure that all of North Carolina’s students, regardless of circumstance, achieve an excellent education that will put them on the pathway to a better life; a life of honor, prosperity and service.”
Guckian joins John White in Louisiana and Kevin Huffman in Tennessee as TFA alumni in state-level positions serving reactionary administrations.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Voodoo Economics….when I see so many states moving in this direction and the forces of corporations and billionaires taking control I think I had better “study up” and learn where they are coming from. During the 50s my Girl Scout leader was drumming the Ayn Rand viewpoints into my head every week and I resisted (some of the Ayn Rand philosophy got written up in “self esteem” articles cf. Nathanel Branden etc). but I can’t just dismiss it ; it’s time to do my homework… Modern day life is built on consumerization (merchandising) and I think I had better try to figure it out. Teacher training and life experiences provided me with the value system I respect based on traditions and concepts long held in public education. These are being assaulted by the “consumer commodity” view of education and logic of market economics. Economic imperialism displaces the value systems I grew up with and I think that is a negative so I had better learn the paradigms they are using in order to discern the differences. I know in the field of study where I spent a lot of time the
“behavior modification” theories took over much more so in the U.S. than in Europe. Instead of understanding the public and civic life in the school, we hand out “blue slips” for chewing gum and “red slips of paper” for bringing a weapon to school etc. as one particular theory (Skinner misinterpreted) dominated the realm. Today it is “rational choice” theory and I hear the cliches everywhere …. The paradigms available to those who studied “calculation of utility” are not the same as the paradigms in sociology (rather than just economics). In the real world of public schools we are dealing with the theory of supply/demand (or other basic economics viewpoints) and yet we then process the policy through the consequences of budget constraints (local must compete with regional and state for the very same funds. competing priorities like guns and butter etc every day). If I work on it in this “study mode” I don’t personalize the assault on teachers or the destruction of professional life quite so much…. as it is very painful. I am glad that I found so many helpful comments on this site… thanks to Diane and others.
I hear ya. It is important to compartmentalize a little and look at it all from the various paradigms you mention, in order to not get overwhelmed with despair. I try to focus on each individual student despite any big picture woes. I even go back in my mind a lot and try to recall aspects of growing up in NC public schools to try and recall what bothered me as a student in the 80s and 90s and I see some of what is going on as an attempt to fix things that may have been problems for a lot of years. Even if leadership is exchanging one set of problems for another, it won’t remain stagnant. I have to believe this. The world is a wonderful place in which to live and we will get this all worked out too.
Even if there are short term gains of progress in this regard, I know my state. It won’t last. People will fight back and not reelect the “leadership” doing these things. Radical Raleigh is not going over well even with Republicans. I have heard banter about this at church dinners, country club events, and among teachers. I agree we need to speak out, but they will not ruin the state this way.
You don’t mess with Tar Heels. They’ll see.
There is a petition that expires on May 18 on Obama’s petition website “We The People” to repeal Common Core and Race To The Top. Please check it out and sign.
Thank you!
I don’t understand the vouchers. I read the vouchers are for $4,200. The lowest priced private school that I know of is about $8,500 and most are closer to $12,000/yr. If a child is receiving free/reduced lunch, I suspect even paying $500 a year would not be possible for some parents. So will new private schools open that can operate with just the voucher amount? I know schools in my area do have scholarship students, but I also know they are very selective.
I don’t know the situation in North Carolina, but it seems obvious (looking at the lobbyists) that private schools are demanding vouchers from reformers to make up for the students they lost to charters, particularly in urban areas, and particularly Catholic schools.
It’s sort of a vicious cycle. Jamming in more and more charters draws revenue from private schools, too, so private schools then need a state subsidy. They’re pushing hard for voucher expansion in Ohio now too. Despite what we were told by reformers, charters lead to vouchers.
The big losers are going to be public schools, because they don’t have huge advertising budgets (like charters) and the state and national leadership right now spend most of their time trashing public schools.
I have never understood why Catholic schools are not more supported by the Roman Catholic church at large. Why would they be hurt by charters? It seems they should operate more like a church outreach than like a business—but I don’t know much about Catholic schools.
The day a public school and/or district starts marketing is the day the current involved administrators should be let go.
Just speaking with my “neighbors” while we were planting the garden last night. Evidently the local Catholic church/school is being threatened with closing even though they just built a new building with funds ($1.5 mil) raised locally and now the archdiocese of St. Louis (we’re sixty miles away from StL) wants them to come up with a plan to raise the same amount in five years. The hierarchy of the church sucks money out of the local parishes.
“particularly Catholic schools.”
I don’t know to what extent Catholic schools are “demanding vouchers” in North Carolina or any other state, but I think there’s definitely something to the idea that that those schools are losing students to charters, at least in certain cities (Philadelphia seems to be one).
To Joanna, who writes “Why would they be hurt by charters?”
Because charter schools (1) are not the local zoned schools that the parents of students in Catholic schools are trying to avoid; and (2) are free, unlike Catholic schools.
The vouchers are not intended for poor children. They are intended to help defray the cost for higher earning middle and upper class people to pull their children out of those wretched schools with all those children of color and radical ideas like teaching evolution.
Can we hit the reformers on defunding education (particularly preschool) in these states?
Seems like an obvious gulf between what they say and what they support. I think one could reach public school parents on the cuts in education funding at the state level. Everyone is aware of them. We hear abut it constantly from local public school leaders.
Is it a coincidence that leaders who come out of TFA end up working for people who cut funding? What’s their response to this? Why is “TFA” always paired with “defunding public education”?
Duncan was just in Michigan appearing at photo ops with children and the Michigan Governor. They’ve cut and cut and cut in Michigan. Does Arne Duncan support that?
North Carolina: the new Mississippi.
Galton, you are correct. The sentiment it seems now is that we don’t want a strong, educated democracy. Our state legislators want citizens they can control. The class wars have begun in NC.
“Among the worst of the new bills is a proposal to fund a voucher/tax credit program, removing $90 million from public schools so that 1% of the state’s 1.5 million students may attend private and/or religious schools.”
Just for comparison, $90 million is what percentage of public school budget?
Fair question.
budget: about $7,444,122,100 (according to NCDPI website)
Thanks!
90/7444=1.2% roughly. But of course for numbers at this scale, smaller errors could amount to hundreds of thousand dollars.
on second thought, simply by dividing the budget by the number of students to determine how much each voucher is worth (which seems to be what is being done) while seeming fair, isn’t really so.
for example, a school can spend the money on facilities that can be shared by many students.
I agree. Per head dollar amount without a school has never made sense to me. Dollar amount per kid only makes sense if they are part of the public school whole.
Diane, thanks for the excellent summary. I am a native North Carolinian, a former NC elementary and middle school teacher, and now a professor of education at a private liberal arts university in NC. Educators and professionals in NC are witnessing the destruction of our public schools and higher education system: an educational system that was once one of the finest in the country. This is no longer true. The hard work and dedication that state leaders like former State Superintendent Bob Etheridge, former Gov. Jim Hunt, and former UNC Chancellor William (Bill) Friday, (just to name a few) is quickly being stripped away. It takes years to build a beautiful building and only one storm to tear it down. That is what we are witnessing right now in NC. During the 80s and 90s the above referenced leaders raised teacher salaries, improved schools, funded early childhood education, strengthened both the public and private colleges and universities. It was an excellent time to be a teacher in NC. People across the nation moved to NC because of its fine educational system.
That is not the case now. One of the major destroyers of our once great educational system is Phil Berger of Eden, NC. You can read the bill he has introduced here http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2013/Bills/Senate/PDF/S361v2.pdf
He wants to strip teachers of their due process (abolish tenure in a RTW state), drain the coffers of taxpayer fund for education and funnel large amounts of money into the hands of the wealthy, dictate what teacher training programs must teach – weakening academic freedom in higher education, force teachers to teach one view of reading, punish children who don’t pass high-stakes tests, and the list goes on and on. As a lifelong educator in NC these are indeed dark times.
Jim–
I respect everything you say here.
I know one question reformers would ask you, though:
“It was an excellent time to be a teacher in NC”—was it an excellent time to be a student? I think that is the question that reformers will hang their hat on.
When things are “wonderful” for teachers, they will be wonderful for students. We cant put students first when we put teachers last.
It was an excellent time to be a student. We had elementary teacher assistants in all K-3 classrooms. We had arts teachers and modern foreign language k-12. NC Schools valued the arts and languages. Teachers were integrating the arts and connecting the curriculum to lots of different experiences. Then NCLB moved in and we slowly lost the arts teachers so we could hire remedial reading teachers. ESL teachers were reduced lessening services to students. I witnessed a major shift from a liberal arts education to a high-stakes atomized curriculum. Test, measure, test, measure, teach to the test, measure, test, teach to the test. That’s what we got. Perhaps reformers can hang their hats on their ill-constructed multiple choice tests.
“Test, measure, test, measure, teach to the test, measure, test, teach to the test.” And then one soils oneself.
Joanna, do you think that it will be “an excellent time for students” when public schools are defunded, teachers are demoralized, for-profit corporations run schools, and communities are destabilized? I can’t think of anything the corporate reformers are advocating, whether it is high-stakes testing or privatization, that will be “excellent for students.”
Republicans have reasons to destroy education. We know the more educated people are the more likely they are to lean left. Since the GOP has no intention of changing its xenophobic, racist, homophobic, misogynistic ways in order to keep followers they have to rely on their ignorance. If this is not an object lesson for the people of NC ( I retired from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in December and moved back to Ohio where our GOP is slightly less nutty) I cannot imagine what might be
I work in NC, and “right to work” state really means “right to get screwed over.” Republicans here are trying to circumvent democracy. For example, in the second largest school system in the state, the former Superintendent knew his “pay-for-performance” system he was pushing had no support from the local teachers (due to its flawed design, lack of teacher input, poorly backed research, vague metrics, etc…) and he knew it wouldn’t draw the necessary votes. So what does he do? Grabs the ear of freshman senator Ruth Samuelson and convinces her to push a bill that would no longer require the support of the teachers. See? Simply circumvent democracy.
The republicans are a dangerous breed, here. We are in the heart of the Bible Belt, and have a significant voter constituency who base thier vote on one of three things, which I call the “Three G’s: God, Guns, Gays.” If there is an “R” by the name, we pull the lever, regardless if it impedes with our personal self interest.
Catholic Schools are most of the private schools in the U.S. Is it any wonder they want vouchers when they are having enrollment problems and financial ones also with the diocese’s problems with child abuse costs? All are looking for a new profit center and to them it is vouchers. Lots of money there for them.
Catholic school are not the majority of private schools in NC, at least not in my city. There is one Catholic school in my town serving about 400 PK-8 students. It may be religious schools are influencing decisions, but the majority are not Catholic in the South.
yeah I agree. It is other Christian schools or just country day schools that are the majority of private schools in NC.
Diane, I follow your blog ‘religously’ (no pun intended) and I have to comment that on the issue of the tax credit/voucher – this is something already law in NC and it is intended to benefit children with learning disabilities. This tax credit was a lifesaver for our family. We have a 98% (percentile) IQ kid with 91st percentile vocab/reading skills who has way behind his peers emotionally and math calculations/writing (brain to pencil to paper) ‘disabled’.
The tax credit let me get him the hell out of the public schools who insisted his needs were remedial – where he yet again would be thrown in a class of 20+ kids with one size fits all education.
This tax credit was applied to a school that specializes in learning barriers – in 2 years (he’s 4th now) he outperforms my 6th grader in all areas other than math as proven on the woodcock Johnson and the general quality of work he does to mastery.
I am not for common core because the devil is in the detail – what my son accomplished had zero to do with a ‘what is the better standards’ argument – it had to do with small classrooms and instruction tailored to his very extreme areas of strength and very extreme areas of weakness.
Don’t knock the 6k tax credit in NC – my son would’ve been in remedial classes continually frustrated vs. in a school that has him in very advanced reading/social studies while also working specifically on his writing/math calculation defecits with much better results than a public school program could ever dream of achieving or offering in classrooms of 24 kids.
“North Carolina is a right-to-work state, so there is no collective bargaining.”
Actually, right to work and lack of collective bargaining are separate legal issues. Utah, for example, is a right to work state where all of the large school districts enter in to CBA’s with unions.
I think in Utah that might be more for convenience, though. I don’t know of a law that requires CBA’s in Utah.
“Right-to-work” refers to whether employees are legally bound to pay an agency fee to the union that bargains on their behalf. It is silent on the question of whether there can be a union with a CBA.
There are states (like VA and NC) where public sector bargaining is not legal. UT permits (and does not require) bargaining and is still a “right-to-work” state.
The brute force power plays are ramping up in response to the ever increasing resistance from parents. Reformers think if they get things written in to law and jammed into place that they will be harder to undo, and that is their weak point as doing so helps us build the true grass roots support needed for that challenge. See these atrocities for what they are, acts of petulant frustration and desperation on their part. They grasp their supposed rose ever tighter as it is pulled from their grasp. Orwellian cries of disinformation pain are what we hear in response.
FYI: We were told as teachers at a local high school that we need to purchase/provide students with sharpened number 2 pencils and white paper to take the state mandated MSL exams. The school district will not provide them. Since the performance by the students on the test will relate back to my evaluation, I will be buying and providing my students supplies.