“’Learning loss’ is a false construct.” Those words came from the Twitter account of Tamika Walker Kelly, president of the N.C. Association of Educators, on March 3, 2021. The NCAE is the state chapter of the national teacher’s union. That sentiment hasn’t aged well a year later, to judge by the results of a new...
A research brief from curriculum publisher Amplify shows that elementary school students continue to lag behind in literacy almost two years into the COVID-19 pandemic. The mid-school-year assessment concluded that students in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade are the furthest behind compared to their pre-pandemic counterparts. Black and Hispanic students are bearing the brunt...
RALEIGH, NC—North Carolina’s largest school district continues to feel the impact of pandemic-related reductions in its student population, and those impacts will be felt for at around a decade, according to a report presented to the Wake County Board of Education on Wednesday, Feb. 9. Despite the fact that Wake County’s population is growing by...
Support for the Opportunity Scholarship Program stands at 61%, according to a new Civitas Poll of likely voters presented by the John Locke Foundation. The results dropped during National School Choice Week 2022, an annual nationwide celebration of educational options for all students. The results were released during a virtual poll luncheon Jan. 27. The...
Gov. Roy Cooper has been a stalwart opponent of school choice since securing the governor’s office in 2016. That makes a proclamation from his office declaring Jan. 23-29 National School Choice Week in the Tar Heel State all the more surprising. The proclamation affirms that North Carolina is “home to a multitude of high-quality public...
A new survey from the nonprofit organization National School Choice Week shows that 52% of parents said they were considering — or considered in the past year — choosing a new or different school for their children. Education quality and pandemic disruptions were the topic reasons cited for finding another school: 36% of parents wanted...
The Tar Heel State’s budget for the new biennium includes $100 million in supplemental pay for public school teachers in some of the state’s smallest, poorest counties. The supplemental pay is valued at up to $4,250 per teacher but the exact value differs significantly across counties. The state’s larger, wealthier counties — including Wake, Mecklenburg,...
Many North Carolinians breathed a sigh of relief last week when the GOP-led legislature and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper came to terms on a budget for the new biennium. School choice advocates were among them and have plenty to celebrate in the new spending plan. “There is greater demand for educational options than ever before....
A retired Union County judge is trying to leapfrog the Republican-led N.C. General Assembly by ordering a $1.7 billion transfer from the state’s coffers to fund public education. The transfer would bankroll two years of a remedial plan in the long-running Leandro school funding case that dates back to 1994. The price tag for the...
Parents in North Carolina report feeling increasingly concerned about the public schools’ efforts to usurp their parental authority on topics such as mask and COVID-19 vaccine mandates to the teaching of controversial race and gender theories. The debate heated up over the summer as lawmakers in the General Assembly passed an anti-indoctrination bill — House Bill 324, Ensuring...
A youth risk survey for middle- and high-school students in the public school system is raising eyebrows for asking students about drug use and sexual activity. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey — a joint project between the N.C. Division of Public Instruction and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — is distributed every...
