News

Lt. governor announces task force on bias, indoctrination in public schools

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson announced Tuesday, March 16, the creation of a task force dedicated to giving “students, parents, and school faculty a voice to speak out about cases of bias, inappropriate materials, or indoctrination they see or experience in public schools.” The F.A.C.T.S task force — standing for Fairness and Accountability in the Classroom...

David N. Bass
Opinion

The impending creep of unionization into North Carolina  

In February 2019, after months of negotiation, Western North Carolina’s Mission Hospital was sold to HCA Healthcare, the nation’s largest for-profit hospital company. HCA Healthcare owns 184 hospitals across the U.S. and United Kingdom. Mission is its first hospital in North Carolina.   After the sale, complaints from residents were filed in the attorney general’s office, and, on Feb....

Becki Gray
News

Lawmakers, education officials rush to prevent temporary lay-offs of 220 teachers

[This story has been updated with additional information.] Education officials and lawmakers are scrambling to prevent the lay-offs of 220 teachers at the N.C. Virtual Public School during the upcoming fall semester.  State law requires a mandatory 31-day break in service for temporary employees. As a result, 220 teachers at NCVPS won’t be allowed to...

Lindsay Marchello

Help Support Non-profit Journalism & Donate Today

Opinion

School choice allows parents to choose sacrifice, inconvenience to help their children succeed

We got lucky. By we I mean my family, which includes my wife and twin boys, who are now 16. They have never attended a traditional public school. They haven’t attended a private school, either. But that’s the great thing about freedom of choice. It gives North Carolina parents options, in this case the ability...

John Trump
News

School districts announce closures as teachers plan May 1 march

Once again teachers will descend on the state capital to call for more public school funding, Medicaid expansion, and a $15 minimum wage for all school workers. The North Carolina Association of Educators, in partnership with several other advocacy groups, is planning a teacher march May 1 in downtown Raleigh. Because so many teachers have...

Lindsay Marchello
News

State Board of Education approves out-of-state licensing agreement for teachers

Out-of-state teachers will have an easier time getting licensed in North Carolina. The State Board of Education voted Thursday, April 4, to allow out-of-state teachers to become licensed in North Carolina if they have already passed a licensing test in their home states. Now, North Carolina only accepts out-of-state teachers who have taken tests identical...

Lindsay Marchello
Opinion

When parental involvement is too much of a good thing

There’s a new twist to an ongoing debate — this one about parents and the students they create. This fall a “We Are Teachers” blog post, lamenting an upsurge in over-involved parents, went viral, eliciting coverage from myriad media outlets and the national teachers’ union. Written anonymously by a middle school teacher, the post described “lawnmower parents,” so named...

Kristen Blair
Opinion

Solving the trust problem between teachers and parents 

Teachers and parents, we have a trust problem. Just 36 percent of public school teachers express “complete” or “a lot of” trust in parents, EdChoice’s new “Schooling in America Survey” says.  What’s eroding trust? One likely culprit: Parental expectations are sky-high. Harried millennial parents want schools to teach skills once considered part of child-rearing. In a new Walton Family...

Kristen Blair
News

Rally in red descends on capital amid demands for teacher raises, more money for schools

    Bickering over the state education budget opened the floodgates to a red sea in downtown Raleigh. Teachers, school personnel, and students clad in red T-shirts took to the streets Wednesday, May 16. They clustered on the old Capitol grounds. They crowded shoulder to shoulder in a massive throng slowly pushing toward the state...

Dan Way