North Carolina’s education system is outdated, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson says. Johnson, a Republican and former member of the Winston Salem/Forsyth County school board, in November ousted incumbent Democratic Superintendent June Atkinson.
North Carolina is stuck in the past, and it’s time to update state databases, teaching methods, and conceptions about what makes a successful career, he told Carolina Journal Associate Editor Kari Travis during an Aug. 8 interview. CJ ran the first part of that interview — which outlined Johnson’s role in a State Board of Education lawsuit — earlier this month.
In this second part, Johnson discusses his role at the Department of Public Instruction, his belief in technology and innovation, and his vision for the future.
This interview was edited for clarity and space.
Carolina Journal: Earlier this year you embarked on a “listening tour” of North Carolina. What has been the general reception? What kinds of questions are you asking administrators and teachers?
Johnson: The first thing that was so important when I took office was to get out into the school districts and really find out what’s troubling teachers in the classroom. But more importantly, [we wanted to find out] what the local school districts are doing well. It’s important to bring those back to Raleigh, and it’s my honor and privilege to serve as the statewide elected official. How do I use all of that knowledge to bring growth to all districts, and bring to the GA these great initiatives that we could scale?
The feedback has been great because teachers and school leaders appreciate … that we are going to different parts of the state to hear what their concerns are for their local districts. We’re really getting a feel for everything. And the big thing I’m looking for, obviously, is innovation. Innovative strategies not just in the classroom, but in connecting classrooms to work force development. That’s a huge passion of mine.
We need to stop telling all students that the only way to success is through a four-year degree. That’s just not true. Now, with that said, every student that wants to go to college should have the opportunity. And they should be prepared to go. But there are a lot of great jobs out there, especially in North Carolina, that require just a high school diploma and a certification. Or just a two-year degree.
One example I like to highlight that I learned on my listening tour is a power lineman. A power lineman is a very difficult job. You’re outside. It’s dangerous. You need to rely on your skills and concentration. A power lineman takes a high school diploma and a little bit of extra certification, and you’re on the job. After a few years as a power lineman, you could be making a six-figure salary. That is a pathway out of poverty for a lot of our students. That is a career.
We’ve been to Caldwell County and Catawba County. We saw a masonry competition. Now these students in high school are becoming masters at this craft. During a competition, these high school students were actually getting job offers from employers that were there to recruit them. There is so much demand … in the Charlotte area for construction that they cannot find the skilled craftsmen to come in and fill that demand.
We saw a welding class … at a high school that was teaming up with a community college. The high schoolers were getting a certification in welding. They’ll walk right out of high school and into a job making $60,000 or $70,000 a year.
These are excellent opportunities that students should know about. Just because you have a high school diploma doesn’t mean that you can’t change and do something else.
Q: What have you learned? Is there anything that’s surprised you during the process?
A: Most surprising, and really most heartwarming, was when we went down to Robeson County. They were hit really hard by Hurricane Matthew, and they had already been struggling as one of our rural counties. The resilience down there was incredible. It was heartwarming to see. You had teachers down there that were sheltering students and their students’ families in their homes during the hurricane and during the time after. [It was amazing] seeing a community come together like that.
I was also surprised by how far they have to go. We toured the central facilities for the school system, where they stored all of their office supplies and maintenance vehicles. It hadn’t been touched since the hurricane. So all the cars were still there. They were all waterlogged. It was like a moment in time had just stopped when the floodwaters came in. They had a long way to go, and will still need support from the state.
Q: You’ve spoken a lot about the need for innovation and technology in schools. Can you give me some specific examples of plans to make improvements in those areas?
A: I’ve got two things that I’ll point out. One is the much more “policy wonk” side of work that gets done here. We worked really hard with the General Assembly over this past session to get them to start investing in modernization of all the hardware and software systems for our local schools districts. They are making significant investments in state funds to do that, because right now we have outdated systems. If you want to point to one county and say “how many art teachers are there in one county, and how many students are in those classes,” we can’t really get that answer. And now transparency, or financial transparency, is extremely important in order to know what works. So this is a great step to bring in more financial transparency for education.
The second thing I’ll highlight is happening back in the classroom. We had visited Johnston, Rowan-Salisbury counties, and they have really led the way in personalized learning. Personalized learning is not a movement to replace teachers with technology. It is actually empowering teachers to move out of a situation where teachers feel like they have 30 students in front of them, and they have to give the same lesson to 30 students. [But we demand various treatment depending on academic standing.]
Personalized learning and technology allow the teacher to become more of a professional, instructional coach that can help students through critical thinking and problem solving. The content on a device can actually allow the students to work at their own pace. Personalized learning is all about the individual, and I believe this is how we move education into the digital age, when we focus on the individual and the individual’s needs.
Well this idea of individualized learning, those students [who fall behind] can be given a plan that helps them catch up with the rest of the class. In Davidson County we visited a great dropout prevention program where students were very motivated to do the work because they looked at a plan and said, “Yeah, if I complete this many lessons per day, by this time, I’ll graduate.” And students who can see that take ownership of their learning.
Q: Is there any kind of pushback against that technology? Is it simply not widespread because of the lack of digital knowledge?
A: It’s widespread because, for too long in education leadership, we have had people pushing for more of the same. And this is change. This could be a big change, and very intimidating. This will require investments from the state. This will require changes in technology and content. This will require overall investment in training for teachers. But it’s a return on investment. No matter where the student is in their learning trajectory, no matter where they come from, they should be able to go to school, work hard, and reach their American Dream. That is our moral obligation.
But, you know, if you’re not motivated by the moral obligation, it’s facts and figures. We are literally at the point in North Carolina where we have more jobs than we have citizens who are skilled to take those jobs. We cannot continue down that path and expect our economy to keep doing what it’s doing. I worked at a technology firm before I came to this job. We literally had to hire people from other countries, and attract them to Winston Salem in order to do the coding work to build software. We’d try to attract [North Carolinians] to Winston Salem, but they’re getting stolen by Washington, D.C., or Atlanta, or Austin, or California, because there are bigger, more competitive companies. But there are a lot of high-paying jobs in those fields, you know?
Yes, this is going to be a major shift in how we’ve done things. But make no mistake, we have an education system that was designed for the industrial age. Thirty students go into a classroom, they’re all taught at the same pace, they’re all expected to meet the same standard at the end of the school year. And you’ve got one teacher at the front of the classroom. We need to be in the digital age. We need to be training students to be prepared to go into advanced manufacturing, to go into coding, to go into these jobs [that require] skills for the 21st century, and that’s going to require a change at the school level.
Q: Do you support the Opportunity Scholarship Program? Should it be expanded?
A: I do support it. I have no dog in the fight over whether or not to expand it or not. That is the General Assembly’s program. [I support Opportunity Scholarships] because I once taught at a struggling high school. I taught at a place where year after year, decade after decade, students have been coming have not been given the opportunity to succeed.
I taught ninth grade. I had a 16 year old ninth-grader. When I finally motivated him to participate in the class instead of skip and goof off, come to find out, he was reading at below a fifth-grade level. He was a ninth-grader, 16 years old, just waiting to drop out.
This happens every year in this state. It is my job, as the leader of public charter schools and traditional public schools, to make sure that doesn’t happen. That we are working to transform the education system so that every student can go to a public charter school or traditional public school and have that opportunity. But we’re not there, and we haven’t been there for many many years, and even if we did everything right starting today, it would still take time before every student had that opportunity.
If we’re going to spend some money for our poorest students in the state to have the same opportunities that my daughter will have in her traditional public school, then I support that. Because no matter what neighborhood you’re born in, no matter how much money your parents have in the bank, you should have an equal shot to work hard and make money in this nation.