Archives for category: North Carolina
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Stuart Egan: North Carolina Legislature Attacks Teachers’ Benefits Again

By dianeravitch
June 27, 2017 //
2

Which state legislature is working hardest to destroy public education and reduce the status of the teaching profession?

Unless you can make a better case, the winner is North Carolina.

The state legislature was swept by Rightwing extremists in 2010, and they promptly gerrymandered the state to protect their supermajority. Even when the public elected a Democratic governor in 2016, the legislature set about stripping the governor of his powers. Recently, the Supreme Court of the United Dtates rejected the state’s gerrymandered districts, clearly intended to disenfranchise black voters.

Now the legislature is back to attacking the teaching profession, in hopes of making it extinct in the state.

NBCT high school teacher Stuart Egan reports:

“The powers that rule in the North Carolina General Assembly have been waging a war against public schools in our state for the last four years. Under the guise of “reform,” GOP conservatives driven by ALEC-crafted policies have successfully enabled and instituted privatization efforts in many forms: unregulated charter school development, expansive growth of unproven vouchers, underfunding traditional public schools, and even propped an educational neophyte as state superintendent who has passively allowed the very department that is set to protect public schools to be heinously undercut.

“However, the latest move against public schools in North Carolina might signal the next step in overhauling education in the Old North State – the systematic elimination of the veteran teacher.

“Let me rephrase that.

“A gerrymandered lawmaking body has passed a budget that further indicates that many lawmakers in Raleigh will go to any length to poach the educational profession of veteran teachers.

“In the last four years, new teachers entering the profession in North Carolina have seen the removal of graduate degree pay bumps and due-process rights. While the “average” salary increases have been most friendly to newer teachers, those pay “increases” do plateau at about Year 15 in a teacher’s career. Afterwards, nothing really happens. Teachers in that position may have to make career-ending decisions.

“Without promise of much pay increase and no graduate degree pay bumps, those teachers may have to leave a profession they not only excel in and love, but serve as models for younger teachers to ensure professional integrity, the kind that was allowed to shine in a North Carolina of yesteryear when Republican governors and lawmakers were in the forefront of making sure public schools were a strength. And those teachers will not have due-process rights that would allow them to speak up about issues like compensation for fear of reprisal.

“Student will suffer; communities will suffer.

“The taking away of retiree state health benefits for teachers hired after January of 2021 is a step to create a system where students are more or less taught by contractors because the endangered species known as the “veteran teacher” will come to the point of extinction.”

Categories Education Reform, North Carolina, Privatization, Teachers

North Carolina: Why Are Low-Income Students Overlooked for Gifted Classes?

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2017 //
15

Three reporters at the Charlotte, North Carolina, “New Observer” obtained seven years of student data and began to analyze it. Joseph Neff, Ann Doss Helms, and David Raynor will be using this database to ask more questions, but they began with a straightforward inquiry about why so many low-income students were not encouraged to enroll in challenging courses.

They write:

“About this time every year, roughly 5,000 North Carolina 8-year-olds show they’re ready to shine. Despite the obstacles of poverty that hobble so many of their classmates, these third graders from low-income families take their first state exams and score at the top level in math.

“With a proper push and support at school, these children could become scientists, engineers and innovators. They offer hope for lifting families out of poverty and making the state more competitive in a high-tech world.

“But many of them aren’t getting that opportunity, an investigation by The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer reveals. Thousands of low-income children who get “superior” marks on end-of-grade tests aren’t getting an equal shot at advanced classes designed to challenge gifted students.

“As they start fourth grade, bright children from low-income families are much more likely to be excluded from the more rigorous classes than their peers from families with higher incomes, the analysis shows. The unequal treatment during the six years ending in 2015 resulted in 9,000 low-income children in North Carolina being counted out of classes that could have opened a new academic world to them.”

Students whose families are low-income are far less likely to gain entry to gifted classes than upper-income students with the same scores.

“Every year across North Carolina, thousands of low-income students who have superior math scores are left out of programs that could help them get to college, an investigation by The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer reveals. They are excluded from advanced classes at a far higher rate than their more affluent classmates who don’t qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.”

North Carolina doesn’t have the money to pay for counselors.

“In North Carolina, public schools average almost 400 students per counselor, and the load is much higher at many schools.

“The state pays for counselors based on a district’s enrollment. When the American School Counselor Association tracked state ratios in 2013-14, North Carolina’s level of 391 students per counselor was below the national average of 491 and comparable to the neighboring states of South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. Only three states fell below the recommended 250, and 11 averaged more than 500 students per counselor.

“Wake County has one counselor for every 393 high-school students, one counselor for every 372 middle-schoolers and one for every 630 in elementary school.”

The changes that North Carolina should make to identify the talents and needs of all students requires funding for smaller classes and more counselors.

The state legislature in recent years has been unwilling to fund education adequately. The legislators need to know that they are wasting the talents of the young people who will be voters, leaders, scientists, and professionals.

Hopefully this series will make them think about how shorty-sighted they have been in refusing to pay the cost of good schools, which all children needs.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article149942987.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Education Reform, North Carolina

Stuart Egan: A Letter of Outrage to the N.C. State Superintendent: Whom Do You Serve?

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2017 //
5

High school teacher Stuart Egan wrote an open letter to the North Caro,Ina Superintendent of Public Instruction. Mark Johnson.

Egan thanked Johnson for his kind words on Teacher Appreciation Week, but wonders why Johnson has failed to advocate for public schools or teachers. Instead, he sits in silence as the legislature cuts programs, privatizes schools, and allows the state to fall to one of the worst funded. In the nation.

A word about Johnson. He taught for two years as a Teach for America teacher. Then he earned a law degree. Then he won a seat on his local school board. That brief resume enables Johnson to refer the himself as an “educational leader,” worthy of overseeing the entire state system.

TFA likes to say that its recruits become lifelong advocates for public schools as a result of two years of teaching.

But Mark Johnson is not advocating for public schools or for students. His only goal seems to be to enhanc his own power.

Egan writes:

“First, it is quite disconcerting to not have heard you speak about the proposed cuts to the Department of Public Instruction. Actually, they aren’t really cuts. It’s more of a severing of limbs.

“As suggested in the budget proposal, http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2017/Bills/Senate/PDF/S257v2.pdf, there would be a 25 percent cut in operation funds for DPI.

“NC Policy Watch’s Billy Ball reported on May 12th, 2017 in “Senate slashes DPI; state Superintendent silent,”

“North Carolina’s chief public school administrator may be silent on Senate budget cuts to North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction, but the leader of the state’s top school board says the proposal has the potential to deal major harm to poor and low-performing school districts.

“There’s no question about that,” State Board of Education Chairman Bill Cobey told Policy Watch Thursday. “A 25 percent cut, which I can’t believe will be the result of this process, would cut into very essential services for particularly the rural and poor counties.”

Cobey is referring to the Senate budget’s 25 percent cut in operations funds for the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), a loss of more than $26 million over two years that, strangely, has produced no public reaction from the leader of the department (http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2017/05/12/senate-slashes-dpi-state-superintendent-silent/).”

Why the silence? Fear? Timidity? Collusion with the Tea Party Republicans who believe that cutting taxes matters more than children’s lives?

Mark Johnson, whom do you serve?

Categories Education Reform, North Carolina, Teach for America

North Carolina: State Senate Cuts Education Funding from Democrats’ Districts

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2017 //
7

This is unbelievable. The Republican-dominated State Senate in North Carolina vengefully cut education funding from Democrats’ districts in a 3 am vote.

Having gerrymandered the state to keep Tea Party control, the Republicans have lost all sense of decency.

Categories North Carolina, Republicans

Watch Rev. William Barber, Our Most Eloquent Spokesman for Civil Rights, Speak at the Schott Foundation Dinner

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2017 //
6

Reverend William Barber II is our most eloquent spokesman for civil rights today. Some believe he is the next Martin Luther King Jr.

He just stepped down as head of the North Carolina NAACP, where he saw daily assaults on voting rights, public schools, and poor people. He started the Moral Mondays Movement, where people witnessed on the steps of the Legislature, which busily enacted laws to strip away the rights of citizens of the state.

He is starting a national organization to fight for a moral vision for America.

He spoke at the Schott Foundation dinner on May 11. Here is his speech. You are in for a treat.

Categories Civil Rights, North Carolina

An Urgent Message to the Citizens of North Carolina

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2017 //
6

Public education is in jeopardy in North Carolina.

Please take action now!

The North Carolina Senate introduced SB 603, a bill creating a new voucher program that would give $9,000 a year to students with disabilities going to non-public schools.

Send an email to tell your house member to vote NO for SB 603.

SB 603 is a bill that:

Expands opportunities for fraud

Costs more to administer than traditional voucher programs

Takes funding from our public schools, with particularly negative impacts for public school programs for students with disabilities

Drains the state budget

Lacks accountability

If passed, parents of eligible students get a debit card loaded with approximately $9,000 per year that they can spend on private school costs, tutoring, technology and even account fees!

In addition, SB 603 would allow parents to double- or triple-dip into North Carolina’s already existing voucher programs. Parents could also receive $4,200 from the Opportunity Scholarship program (for students meeting certain income requirements), an additional $8,000 via the Disabilities Grant Program and $9,000 from this program the new proposed program.

Like the Arizona ESA program on which it is modeled, it is ripe for fraud. Arizona’s program has resulted in parents buying televisions, groceries, cell phones and family planning services. Vendors have also been caught overcharging parents. Monitoring of purchases would rely on self-reporting.

Under the proposed bill, even if an audit uncovers fraud, there is no requirement that the parent be forced to repay the taxpayers.

Worst of all, when a parent misuses these debit cards, their children go undereducated.

This is, in our opinion, just one more attempt to defund and attack public education. And it is shameful.

Send this email today to your representative telling them to oppose SB 603.

We make it easy. Just click here.

Then pick up the phone and call on Monday. You can find their number here.

Then post this link on your Facebook page and share it will all of your friends and family in North Carolina.

https://npeaction.org/2017/05/12/north-carolina-alert-stop-super-voucher/

Thanks for all you do!

Carol Burris

Executive Director

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, North Carolina, Privatization, Vouchers

North Carolina: Legislators Propose Special Perks for Corporate Charters

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2017 //
13

Under a bill proposed in the North Carolina legislature, corporations would gain the power to set aside half the seats in a new charter for their employees if they contributed funds, land, or equipment. For their generosity, the corporation would also have seats on the charter boards. The charter would become a perk for corporate leaders and valued employees, kind of like a company store.

The state House is considering a collection of bills that would change who can start a charter and how quickly the schools can grow. Corporations would be able to reserve spaces in schools for their employees’ children, and two towns would be able to set up charter schools for their residents. Under current law, charters are open to any student in the state, although schools can give preference to siblings and school employees’ children.

“This is loosening the restrictions on how charters operate and what they’re allowed to do,” Rep. Graig Meyer, an Orange County Democrat, said of the collection of bills the House Education Committee approved Monday in divided votes.

Under one bill, up to half a charter school’s seats could be reserved for children whose parents work for companies that donate land, buildings or equipment to the school. Employees of those companies would also be able to join the charter school’s board of directors.

Rep. John R. Bradford III, a Mecklenburg Republican, framed the bill as an economic development tool that could help attract companies to rural counties. Companies would be able to offer classroom seats as employee perks, Bradford said, equating charter enrollment to companies paying for employee meals.

“This creates a vehicle where a company can create an employee benefit,” he said.

Meyer objected, saying the provision would have taxpayer money going to company schools.

“This moves closer to privatization than North Carolina has ever allowed before,” he said.

Another bill would allow charter enrollment to grow 30 percent a year without approval from the State Board of Education. Charters are now limited to 20 percent annual growth without board approval. Some Democrats objected on the grounds that it could fuel growth in schools that aren’t good. Allowing charters with bad records to expand would not be fair to taxpayers, parents or students, said Rep. Bobbie Richardson, a Louisburg Democrat.

At the same time, the legislature imposed a mandate to reduce class size without any new funding, which will cause layoffs of thousands of teachers and overcrowding in grades not included in the mandate.

North Carolina blogger-teacher Stuart Egan calls the corporate-control bill “The Privatization of Public Schools Bill.”

Can there be any question that the NC legislature is systematically privatizing the schools of the state?

Categories Charter Schools, Class size, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, North Carolina, Privatization

North Carolina: ACTION NEEDED NOW! General Assembly Will Vote on Budget at 4 pm!

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2017 //
4

An urgent appeal from parent leaders at Public Schools First North Carolina. The General Assembly is about to pass a budget that includes no funding for teachers of art, music, and physical education. The unfunded mandate for reduced class size in the early grades will cause massive layoffs and program cuts. ACT NOW!

ACTION ALERT……..ACTION ALERT ACTION ALERT……..ACTION ALERT ACTION ALERT……..ACTION ALERT

PUBLIC SCHOOL ADVOCATES MUST CONTACT LEGISLATORS NOW!

Senators are planning to vote on the HB13 Amended Bill THIS AFTERNOON, Tuesday April 25th at their 4pm session.

PLEASE STOP what you are doing right now and CALL, E-MAIL, or TWEET North Carolina Senators FIRST and then call every HOUSE Member and ask them to add an amendment to put money for SPECIALS in the new two-year budget! The current bill has NO funds to pay for specials teachers next year! PLEASE DO IT NOW!

This may be our only chance to get this bill FIXED to avoid headaches with funding for our specials teachers next year. Let’s avoid having our teachers worry for another year about having their jobs. Let’s avoid potential layoffs next year by getting the money appropriated this year. Ask Senators to AMEND HB13 on the SENATE floor today! If this is their intention, then putting it into the bill this year should be no problem, right?

Ask Senators to amend the bill to add a guarantee of funding for specials teachers for next year in the two-year budget they are working on right now. ASK THEM TO PUT A GUARANTEE OF MONEY IN THE BUDGET to give school districts the planning time they need to keep their teachers in the classroom!

If HB13 is not amended to add money, this will NOT be addressed until the NEXT legislative session, the short session that starts in May 2018 — this is later in districts’ budgeting process than right now! May 2018 will be TOO LATE for many school districts whose teachers will have moved on to find other jobs or will have been dismissed due to lack of funding.

IF THE SENATORS DO NOT ADD THE FUNDING GUARANTEE NOW before the bill returns to the HOUSE for a final vote, OUR TEACHERS AND PARENTS will be left to worry and fret for another 12 months. This is not the way to run our public schools – ACT TODAY!! ASK NOW!!! This is the critical moment in this fight for funding.

Senators have the DATA needed! All of the information needed for the reports that Senator Barefoot wants to so he and other Senators can ALLOCATE money for K-3 teachers and for SPECIALS is in PowerSchool (NCDPI database) right now. This means that all of the Senators have this data NOW and can use it to make all assumptions needed NOW to figure out exactly what appropriations are needed to FUND Specials in 2018-19.

Senators promised to add this language in the Amendment last night and at the last moment they excluded the language leaving the HB13 fix ONLY half done.

BOTTOM LINE: The data needed to make the appropriation in the NEW two-year budget is in PowerSchool database and in the hands of our legislators at this time. The request is simple: put money in the budget now by amending HB13 now to include appropriation for Specials in 2018-19 school year.

To be clear, legislators are to be praised for advocating for smaller class sizes! All public education advocates are for smaller class sizes but not supportive of unfunded mandates or unrealistic implementation plans. The unintended consequences must be dealt with if our goal is to have great public schools that offer the best learning experiences for our youngest children.

Here is a WIN-WIN proposal: Encourage legislators to provide the money for teachers and SPECIALS NOW! And give local school districts time – 3 to 5 years – to find local funds for new classroom space; time to build and create additional space! Give school districts time to find new teachers or reassign/retrain some of their current staff. The alternative is crowded schools, classes in supply closets or lunchrooms, higher local taxes, lack of teaches or teachers with little or no experiences, and extreme over crowding in the upper grades to accommodate space and teachers for K-3. Right now, class sizes in the grades 4 to 12 are too large in many school districts — we have 35 or more kids in many classes!

Categories Budget Cuts, Class size, Funding, North Carolina

Manufactured Chaos in North Carolina as Legislature Mandates Class Size Reduction with No Funding

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2017 //
9

North Carolina public schools, once considered the best in the South, are under constant attack by the rightwing legislature. The latest salvo is an unfunded mandate to reduce class sizes in the early grades. It is a wonderful idea to reduce class size, but it is costly. Imposing the mandate without funding is a recipe for disruption and chaos.

The Republicans who control the legislature are crazy for privatization, for charters and vouchers and cybercharters. Are the Republicans trying to drive children and families away from public schools by inflicting chaos and stripping away activities that students love?

Despite warnings by district superintendents about massive layoffs of teachers of arts and physical education, the state senate has refused to back down.

“North Carolina’s largest public school system may be warning of “enormous disruptions” without speedy action from state lawmakers on a looming class size funding crisis, but key education leaders in Raleigh tell Policy Watch there’s little sign Republican lawmakers in the General Assembly will act soon.

“It doesn’t seem like there’s any movement planned,” says Sen. Floyd McKissick, a Durham Democrat who sits on the state Senate’s Rules and Operations Committee, a panel that includes some of the chamber’s most powerful lawmakers and sets the agenda for future committee talks.

“McKissick said he met late last week with Sen. Bill Rabon, the eastern North Carolina Republican who chairs the committee, but GOP leaders remain reticent to make any commitments regarding a legislative fix to the funding controversy, despite stiff warnings from district chiefs that thousands of teachers’ jobs are in jeopardy.”

Here is a report from Wake County, once considered one of the best school districts in the nation. Syracuse scholar Gerald Grant wrote a book called “Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Public Schools in Wake County.”

That was then. This is now:

“The state legislature’s plan to cut elementary school class sizes could lead to larger class sizes in all Wake County schools, including 40 or more students in some elementary classrooms.

“State lawmakers lowered maximum class sizes in kindergarten through third grade from 24 students this school year to between 19 and 21 students starting in July. Wake County Superintendent Jim Merrill warned Tuesday that unless the state provides relief, the district will have to consider options such as increasing class sizes for older students, cutting art and music classes, laying off teachers and reassigning students on short notice.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article145287929.html

http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2017/04/20/local-school-districts-prepare-enormous-disruptions-senate-refuses-ease-class-size-requirements/

Categories Class size, North Carolina

North Carolina: State Mandate to Reduce Class Size Will Cost Loss of Thousands of Teachers

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2017 //
29

The legislature in North Carolina never tires of finding new ways to mess up their state’s once-greatly admired public schools.

By mandating class size reduction across the state without providing additional funds, districts will be required to send pink slips to thousands of teachers of music, arts, physical education, and teacher assistants.

“We’re not dealing with widgets. We’re dealing with people’s lives and their livelihoods,” says Katherine Joyce, executive director of the N.C. Association of School Administrators (NCASA), an organization that reps public school district leaders at the legislature.

The uncertainty puts at least 5,500 teaching jobs statewide in jeopardy as districts scramble to reallocate resources, according to the NCASA.

That doesn’t include teacher assistant positions, particularly crucial jobs in low-performing schools and districts jettisoned by the thousands in cash-starved districts since 2008. Without major legislative concessions in the coming weeks, K-12 leaders expect many more T.A. jobs will be on the chopping block this year.

One bipartisan-supported reprieve to the looming class size order, House Bill 13, gained unanimous approval in the state House in February, but despite advocates’ calls for urgent action this spring, the legislation has lingered in the Senate Rules Committee with little indication it will be taken up soon.

Sen. Bill Rabon, the influential eastern North Carolina Republican who chairs the committee, did not respond to Policy Watch interview requests, but his legislative assistant said this week that Rabon’s committee will not consider any House bills until the General Assembly’s April 27 crossover deadline….

Regardless, public school leaders say the state’s drive to reduce class sizes comes at a particularly arduous time for districts. With North Carolina teacher pay mired among the lowest in the nation, K-12 experts are reporting major teaching shortages and plummeting interest in teaching degrees in the UNC system.

The legislature, dominated by a super-majority of ultra-conservative Republicans in both houses, is doing its level best to harass teachers and drive students to charter schools and vouchers. Under the guise of “reform,” more teachers and programs will be cut.

Categories Budget Cuts, Class size, North Carolina, Teacher Shortage, Teachers
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