2013 was a horrible year for teachers and public schools in North Carolina.
The legislature and the governor passed bill after bill intended to demoralize teachers, defund public schools, and expand the transfer of public funds to privately managed schools, private schools, and religious schools.
Here, Lindsay Wagner of NC Policy Watch describes the nine actions that were intended to crush public school teachers and privatize public education.
The movement to snuff out public education begins by funneling public dollars to private schools, home schools, and charter schools, none of which are accountable for their spending or actions.
Then it starts the dismantling of the teaching profession by turning teachers into temps, removing any due process rights.
Into the mix, increase the amount and importance of standardized testing.
And meanwhile, cut the budgets of public schools and higher education.
It’s time to quote Garrison Keillor again. I may have to quote him once a week.
“When you wage war on the public schools, you’re attacking the mortar that holds the community together. You’re not a conservative, you’re a vandal.”
― Garrison Keillor, “Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America”
Conservatives don’t destroy their community’s public schools. Conservatives don’t blow up traditional and beloved institutions.
Conservatives don’t place the free market above human values.
In North Carolina, the cultural vandals control the state.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is a wonderful piece by Jane Mayer (written in 2011). Art Pope is behind the efforts to privatize public education in North Carolina. Pope essentially bought the state:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_mayer
Have ed reformers objected to any part of Pope’s “ed reform” agenda in North Carolina?
I don’t imagine why they would, it’s identical to theirs, but I’m curious if they’ll make a show out of opposing radical Right wing privatization.
I think what’s happening in NC is a political problem for the “liberal” reformers. Pope’s agenda on education is identical to theirs.
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True dat.
We do, however, have a committee exploring CCSS. And asking questions. That is a good step, I think.
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This is a step in the right direction. I hope to see more action and not just lip service.
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I think 2013 was a horrible year for teachers and public education in nearly every state. The glimmers of hope only come because things are starting to get so bad that it’s hard to ignore the situation or “go along to get along”. Things are in some ways getting better precisely because they’re getting worse.
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i hope North Carolinians keep up the Moral Mondays. Moral Mondays is something that needs to be happening nation wide.
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I think as long as ALEC is in our General Assembly, Moral Mondays fall on deaf ears, or provide background music that is an accompaniment track for their agenda.
It is truly amazing how quickly things have moved here. Relatives of mine, always life long participants and supporters of public schools, continue to head to private schools across the state–evidence of a seemingly hopeless situation.
I think things will get better. People will not tolerate this once it is more common place knowledg as to what is happening.
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The problem in NC is that teacher pay is still a teacher problem. Parents aren’t stepping up to the plate in the numbers they should. This is why I am in support of working bell to bell. No sports, no concerts, no plays, no tutoring without getting compensated. This will make teacher pay in NC EVERYONE’S problem and maybe then they will see all that teachers really do, how we go above and beyond.
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Diane,
Thanks for continuing to keep a national focus on North Carolina. We have appreciated your help. Moral Mondays have been a great vehicle to make the legislature nervous and we hope they continue. But it is not always easy for those of us who live out of town to attend. Fortunately, there are actions happening all over the state. In just New Hanover County of North Carolina there have been the following actions:
• The school board is examining requesting to opt out of the common core.
• UNCW conducted a legislative session where people on both sides of education spoke. The teachers at one school used this opportunity to give the legislatures a petition to opt out of merit pay/tenure loss.
• Teaches have been vocal and attending all school board meetings wearing Red for Ed. Shirt. In one occasion one teacher read a poem. At another school board meeting their was a unity circle that got media attention.
• Teachers had a walk in in November and wore Red for Ed shirts. This originally prompted the school board to look into disciplining these teachers but after a statewide and national outcry and support ( photos from all over the country support New Hanover teachers by taking photos of themselves wearing Red for Ed shirt in schools)
• The school board changed their mind and said they had not banned teacher from wearing Red for Ed. This and the other actions above prompted the school board to pass a resolution to refuse the merit pay/tenure loss.
• Over 70 supporters marched for Red for Ed in the holiday parade.
• Two professors conducted a survey to measure teacher perceptions of the legislative changes. 97 thought they were harming education.
Other individuals have been writing editorials, participating or running activist activities, starting opt out of testing movements and attending all meetings where school board members are so that teacher’s voices can be heard.
Though this is an international problem- luckily schools are still run by local school boards and states so we have been focusing on state and local changes. We only have begun to fight.
( I posted this earlier with links for each point but it is awaiting moderation. This is a version with links deleted. I hope both get posted for those of you who want more information or want to get involved.)
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Whoops I put this as a reply to Bernadette- but I guess it fits. I wish I was not so blog reply impaired.
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Janna– good list. Thank you.
I am proud of your county for leading on this.
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Bernadette, I have heard some veteran teachers say this same thing. That the only power teachers really possess is to leave when the duty day is over.
Most, though, want to do right by the children and the whole picture. It is complex, isn’t it?
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Yes, it is complex. But honestly, what other options are available? Perhaps the politicians would understand better all we do and how professional we are, how dedicated we are when we just do what they believe we do, work 8-4, Mon-Fri with summers off. I think it wouldn’t take long either, a month or two and suddenly they’d find a way to fix the budget problems.
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Diane,
Thanks for continuing to keep a national focus on North Carolina. We have appreciated your help. Moral Mondays have been a great vehicle to make the legislature nervous and we hope they continue. But it is not always easy for those of us who live out of town to attend. Fortunately, there are actions happening all over the state. In just New Hanover County of North Carolina there have been the following actions:
• The school board is examining requesting to opt out of the common core.
• UNCW conducted a legislative session where people on both sides of education spoke. The teachers at one school used this opportunity to give the legislatures a petition to opt out of merit pay/tenure loss. http://uncw.mediasite.mcnc.org/mcnc/Play/9bd358e6583d458bbe09a8523757284b1d
• Teaches have been vocal and attending all school board meetings wearing Red for Ed. Shirt. In one occasion one teacher read a poem. At another school board meeting their was a unity circle that got media attention. http://www.wect.com/story/24128283/red-for-ed-protestors-form-unity-circle
• Teachers had a walk in in November and wore Red for Ed shirts. This originally prompted the school board to look into disciplining these teachers but after a statewide and national outcry and support ( photos from all over the country support New Hanover teachers by taking photos of themselves wearing Red for Ed shirt in schools) https://www.facebook.com/events/215498251965210/
• The school board changed their mind and said they had not banned teacher from wearing Red for Ed. This and the other actions above prompted the school board to pass a resolution to refuse the merit pay/tenure loss. http://www.wwaytv3.com/2013/12/03/nhcs-board-urges-state-to-repeal-mandate
• Over 70 supporters marched for Red for Ed in the holiday parade. https://www.facebook.com/events/256783837803064/permalink/261467230668058/
• Two professors conducted a survey to measure teacher perceptions of the legislative changes. 97 thought they were harming education. http://people.uncw.edu/imigs/documents/SmithImigReport.pdf
Other individuals have been writing editorials, participating or running activist activities, starting opt out of testing movements http://optoutoftestsnewhanover.weebly.com/, attending all meetings where school board members are so that teacher’s voices can be heard.
Though this is an international problem- luckily schools are still run by local school boards and states so we have been focusing on state and local changes. We only have begun to fight.
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Another article that may be of interest about NC- not sure the business comparison is helpful or not.
http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/12/30/3495275/urgent-wake-up-call-from-nc-teachers.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_645148428862234_6492756_645498258827251#f1d34d4094
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I know the amount of money thrown at elections is important but there are a lot of gullible people out there.
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States who commit to such egregious educational policies (and the citizens who continue to vote for those who make the laws) are going to be the ones who suffer in the long run. Why on earth would professionals with young children consider moving to such a state – or businesses that need them?
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Here is an article about how a charter school is holding a community together when the traditional public school was in danger of closing: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/16/us-usa-school-farm-idUSBRE91F07Q20130216
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How touching.
Question, though. Why couldn’t the effort put into this charter school have been put into the public school? Why couldn’t the popular programs at the charter school have been implemented at the public school? Is it because the charter school is free of regulations and mandates like testing and Common Core? Why then should the public school be subjected to such regulations and mandates? I mean, if charter schools are public schools and all, why should they be treated any differently?
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As far as I know there is no common core testing in the state of Kansas, so that seems an unlikely explanation. They do seem to have testing, however, as the article reports that test scores have been increasing and 100% of students have been judged proficient or better. Who knew that raising chickens was a way to teach to the test?
Being able to draw students in from outside the catchment area and district seems to have played a role, as well as designing a curriculum that lies outside the standard for the school district.
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ME. It’s a pity that we judge a school with so little information.
Schools are complex. So much more information is needed, especially with charter schools. Having worked in public schools for so many years, I can see how easy it is to paint a certain picture.
I am in no way deriding this particular school. I think it is a fabulous idea, and public schools ought to be able to do the same thing – to be treated as professionals and alongside strong community input, do what’s right for the kids locally.
Still, this type of journalism is doing this school a favor. I bet the writer visited the school on one occasion, interviewed a few people, and wrote the article. I want to know more – what types of kids are they getting? What are their expulsion rates? Are they playing games with the data.
With testing data, it is easy to play games. Public schools have unfortunately been doing this for years – because we are forced to in order to look good on paper.
Schools are enormously complex, and it would be ridiculous to judge this school on such a small microcosm. In fact, judging one school is dangerous enough – if this is a charter chain, I would like to know how they are doing elsewhere.
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Most charter schools are not part of any chain, and I don’t believe this one is part of a chain. I posted it here because it seems to me this charter school is the mortar that holds this town together, its hounds like the public school district would have been content to let this school, and very possibly the town, die. Just bus the students to Newton.
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Expulsion rates? Clearly you don’t know small town life in the middle of the country.
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ME
The author is right…I can assure you she is right on the money…..Been there…Done that..Not interested in your NC Teaching Chaotic Curriculum and hundreds of Tests….anymore…Through with NC… You do not teach in NC..You Test….that is all..Test…and Test..
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Wow neanderthal100 . You paint with a very large brush. Though we do have CC in NC I have not seen any scripted lessons or all teaching to the test. Actually the research shows that teaching test related material had increased to an average of 50% as reported by teachers( which I agree is too much). When asked in a recent study about the impact of all of this on students:
• Nearly half of classroom teachers indicate that recent legislative changes have negatively impacted the quality of teaching and learning in their own classrooms. This is in contrast to just 1.4% of teachers who believe the changes have yielded
improvement.
• 63.3% of teachers and administrators indicate that recent legislative changes have negatively impacted the quality of teaching and learning in their own school.
• A significant portion of teacher and administrator comments centered on working harder to protect students from the perceived effects of recent education changes.
But everyday my children work on project based learning and have enrichment activities. The teachers are under enormous pressure but still doing their best to teach well.Do not discount the whole state when there are pockets of excellence still occurring here, despite the obstacles.
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( paraphrased from another post I made)
TE: I personally have no problems with charter schools (I evaluated several of them when the movement began) and I even was an administrator in a private school. So there are no ideology problems on my part. But the problems are funding and poor implementation. There were already inadequate funds for public schools before there were e-schools, charter schools and vouchers. Now all 4 go after the same insufficient funds. And the one’s that get hurt the most is public schools since they are burdened with all of the federal and state restrictions and all of the children who have high needs that the other options will not take. Children from poverty, children with special needs, children who do not have English as their native language and even gifted children take additional funds that the typical budget was already inadequate for. For example, school social workers, school guidance counselors, school librarians, school nurses, school psychologists all cost moneys and are now at inadequate numbers to serve students, especially in schools of lower socioeconomic means. Public education costs money to do it well and if we siphon off public dollars for none public entities there are a lot of people getting rich with little to no accountability and others being neglected.
There are individual success stories of charter schools but so far not a single one that is truly replicable on a large scale. I would make the point that if these innovations are as good as this article implies- then they should be funded at the public school or privately funded like all good private schools always have. But to take public funds when there are inadequate amounts to give to another entity is really just hurting us all. An uneducated populace with dire social issues that we do not address will harm our communities and future.
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Janna,
I think one of the best features of choice schools like charter schools is that they understand education is not something that can successfully done on a large scale. I look to a system where students can find a school that speakers to them and their family, not one that must speak to the cacophonous voices of a geographically defined catchment area.
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TE,
I totally agree and if we funded schools properly and applied the same rules then all schools could be like good charter schools and be designed for certain interests or communities. I have sent my own children to several optional schools, magnet schools and other specialty public schools which were the precursors to charter schools. But current iterations of charter schools have not been so innovative as they have been for profit ( which I would not mind if they actually worked). Profit at the expense of children is hard to stomach. But I am in the public schools several times a week and I work with diverse populations. I do not mean just ethnicities, I mean diverse abilities, diverse socioeconomic means and diverse abilities. And I see what happens to underfunded schools. Children get harmed. Even my children get harmed when there are too many needs and too many children and not enough adults or resources. And in my state I saw where the education money is going and it is not going to public schools. If there was a alternative for all children ( even on a small scale) so that no child would be left out of public school I would be all for it. There is not. Have you read about the abuses of the charter schools in Florida for students with disabilities?
Though I can home school or send my children to a private school, after spending over 30 years making great gains with student who have exceptional needs of all types, our current practices are a huge step backwards in helping society. If we adequately funded public school we could do everything you suggest. But we don’t. Bruce Baker’s latest post at Schoolfinance101 explains how far backwards we have gotten in the past few years,.With additional funding we were finally really differentiating instruction for all learners (including gifted!) and providing enrichment for all. Now we are moving more and more toward teaching to tests especially for struggling learners. Fortunately in my county we still have art, music, foreign languages and vocational classes) It should not just be children from parents of means who get these advantages.
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I have sent letters to two newspapers this week speaking about thisidea. How about the Reformers send some money to our struggling public schools. Let’s support the Real public schools and make them work for our kids It can work. just need effective learners and experiences teachers. I bleieve we have them . But you can,t make money off Public school, but Charters yes. Just pay your staff low wages, no union, limited resources and work them to death… Make lots of money I get soooo frustrated . I will continue to voice my idea and hope it will spread and make sense to all.
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Many of us do raise money and try to support public schools. I hope more and more people do it. But it is always the more affluent schools that seems to get the funding. http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2013/12/30/the-post-equity-era-in-school-finance/
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Many people find “revisionist history” exercises to be a waste of time, and each time I sort of hint at “what if” questions I don’t get much response. But. . .
I was just watching an ESPN 30 For 30 (they are excellent) with my husband about the year a tornado hit the Georgia Dome touring the SEC tournament. And because of a three point shot that sent the game into overtime, thousands of lives were saved because the fans were inside of the Dome instead of dispersing into the streets when the funnel cloud hit. In this situation it is easy to say “wow; what if that shot had not gone in the basket. . . No overtime. Thousands killed or injured.”
OK. So to me it shouldn’t be that hard to say “if we had gone the charter and voucher route 50 years ago (or even 65), where would we be now in terms of education for the public?” What would be different? What liaisons would have or would not have been formed? Etc. it’s a huge and complex question, but to me if there is a movement afoot (such as there obviously is across the nation), under the guise of a more equitable populace, then how is the demonized public school realm and all of its parts (teachers, the lives they built over the last sixty years, the impact and lack of impact, etc) really a part of what this new vision suggests, what it purports to change, what is suggested it is responsible for . . . evaluate all of that as if vouchers and charters has been around all along.
Really. If the public school arena (from the University programs that train, the testing programs that qualify, the schools and students and mentor teachers, the trends in resources such as text books. . . all of it) is truly to blame for societies’ ills, then where would we be if this arena had never been allowed to flourish in the first place? Certainly it wouldn’t just be that turtlenecks with apples and denim jumpers would never have come into play. More women selling Mary Kay? More women staying home? What? What woykd be different? Anyone who has been connected in any way to a public school should consider this. From every aspect we need to consider this so as to paint the picture of where we are headed. We have to break it down to really paint the picture. And the picture of where we are headed might be the only thing that speaks louder than the dogmatic philosophies tugging at public education from all sides.
I think exercises like that are worthwhile.
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“if we had gone the charter and voucher route 50 years ago (or even 65), where would we be now in terms of education for the public?” What would be different? ”
If we had done it a decade earlier we would look like Chile or Sweden. If we did it 50 years ago? I am not sure. But I do know that when inequity gets too large between the haves and have-nots it causes revolutions and overthrowing of governments. A little review of history shows that. Either through wars or through other types of cultural, political or economic revolutions.
To bad people get greedy and do not learn from history. We seem to have to learn this lesson over and over. I am glad to see that the tide is turning. Hopefully change can come through peaceful means. I been reading about critical pedagogy lately to help figure out where we went wrong.
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Janna– can you recommend some reading along those lines ? I too want to have a grasp of where we went wrong to give such momentum to reform.
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Joanna, Diane has great information at this site on Chile and Sweden- just go to the search engine on her posts and type in Chile to get the 3 part series and some other posts/ links, and type in Sweden for a few good posts.
As for philosophies- read up about neoliberalism. That is the movement behind the changes we are experiencing.But I also have been reading about oligarchies and plutocrats- ruling by a small group of the wealthy. This has happened before in other countries and our own. In the early 1900’s we had very wealthy people also trying to rule the country. What changed things is the rise of labor, unions, minimum wage laws, and a couple of world wars.But even the solutions like Unions seem to have issues when they get too powerful. It seems that power corrupts no matter who has it. (I’ve seen some recent psychological studies showing it happens to anyone).
Back to your question- some of the most interesting people who have been predicting the downfall of democracy are the critical pedagogy. Paulo Friere and Noam Chomsky are among my favorites to read. I recently asked to write a chapter for book on critical pedagogy and it re-spurred my interest in philosophical views of the world. I hope some of this is helpful.
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“What children in NC are NOT LEARNING!” That needs to be a major story……Most High School students in the state of NC can not add a list of two-digit numbers..Saw it first hand many many times…I can say it..it is pathetic…….Not because of the teachers..but the teachers’ “Masters” who are breathing down their necks telling them the artificial scripted lesson they have to follow…..Private School is worth every cent of the money a parent spends…
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I already replied to you above but have you been in many schools across the state? At least in the districts I work with I have not seen this at all. I am in New Hanover, Pender, Brunswick, and Onslow high schools.
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Some more NC news-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/02/north-carolina-teacher-survey_n_4533078.html
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And some more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/01/02/4584349/common-core-backlash-casts-shadow.html#.UsbZBvRDt8F
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