Education emerging as key election issue, poll shows
A new poll from a national charter school group indicates that many parents could become single-issue voters on the topic of education.
When I first began covering state politics and public policy in the late 1980s, North Carolina families dissatisfied with the quality of education provided by their local school district had limited options. Some could afford private schools, or to move to other communities where they hoped the assigned public schools were better. A few were...
The latest list of top high schools as published by U.S. News and World Reports has eight public charter schools among the top 25 high schools in North Carolina. The list was compiled based on data for nearly 24,000 public high schools in 50 states and the District of Columbia. Here are the eight schools making the...
Few of us would prefer to live in a community where there’s only one place to buy our groceries or clothing, one restaurant to get a bite, one channel to watch, one doctor to visit, or one lawyer to hire.
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...
Accountability for publicly funded school choice programs should primarily come through parent empowerment, not regulatory overreach. That’s the assessment of a new report from Notre Dame Law School scholar Nicole Stelle Garnett published by the Manhattan Institute. The report, “Accountability in Private-School Choice,” focuses on the balance between ensuring academic accountability with not abridging private...
Tim Taylor could scarcely have imagined when he began attending Arapahoe Charter School in 1997, that he would one day come full circle and send his own sons there decades later. Taylor attended Arapahoe Charter — one of the first charters created under a new North Carolina new law — for middle school in the...
The N.C. Senate rolled out a budget proposal this week that would expand school choice across the state while raising teacher pay and seeking to remedy student learning losses due to closed classrooms because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “There is nothing flashy about this education budget, which is precisely what we have come to expect...
This month, North Carolinians will celebrate the silver anniversary of North Carolina’s charter school law. It is a time to celebrate and reflect on how far the movement has come over the last 25 years. A unique set of circumstances allowed the passage of North Carolina’s charter school law. In 1994, North Carolina Republicans benefited...
In the waning hours of crossover week, the N.C. House passed a bill to open new funding sources and add flexibility to charter schools. House Bill 729 passed the House, 63-52. The bill would make several key changes to the state’s charter schools law. “Charter schools have matured to the point where they’re accepted across...
North Carolina’s best-performing charter schools would have an easier time opening new campuses in challenging settings, under a bill that won endorsement from a state House committee. House Bill 616 won unanimous approval after less than three minutes of discussion Tuesday in the Education K-12 Committee. “The reason that we need a change is I...
Charter school leaders in North Carolina are urging incoming U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona to continue federal support and protection for charters moving forward. The N.C. Association of Public Charter Schools is one of 50 organizations signing on to a new letter calling on Cardona to follow a path of “equitable support for public...