RALEIGH: Today, Governor Roy Cooper and Democratic legislative leaders held a press conference highlighting Republican legislators' disastrous plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on taxpayer funded private school vouchers while that should be going to public schools. The Governor was joined by Rep. Robert Reives, Sen. Dan Blue, Sen. Michael Garrett, Sen. Lisa Grafstein, Rep. Sarah Crawford and Rep. Cynthia Ball.
North Carolina’s public school students could use some help. From thirty years of the still-ongoing Leandro court case, we know that our school funding is inadequate. Our state’s school funding effort – the amount we spend relative to the size of our economy – ranks dead last in the country.
The General Assembly ought to enact big pay increases for educators in North Carolina’s public schools. In the context of soaring prices, strong revenue collections, tight labor markets, and persistent vacancies in key teaching positions, it’s the right thing to do.
Democratic members of the N.C. State Board of Education have their sights set on Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt, saying Truitt was putting too many parents from schools of choice on a new advisory committee.
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is calling for broad reforms to the K-12 education system in North Carolina. Robinson's comments came during a standing committee meeting on Monday, Feb. 21, that touched on themes of accountability, discipline, and restoring common sense.
Following the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services announcement that North Carolina won’t be ending the mask mandate for public school children, N.C. Speaker of the House, Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, stated that the House would be advancing legislation to give parents the ability to opt-out of the mask requirement. Legislation is expected after redistricting.
Governor Roy Cooper today announced plans to help combat staff shortages in K-12 school districts across the state during the current surge of COVID-19 cases. The policy will allow state employees to use volunteer days with supervisor approval to work in North Carolina public schools as substitute teachers, bus drivers and cafeteria staff.
“There’s a couple of reasons as to why I think we should call them government schools,” said DeAngelis during the closing session of Classical Liberals in the Carolinas’ recent annual conference. “One is that it provides clarity between charter schools and traditional public schools. Charter schools are defined as public schools, but they’re not government-run.”
Gov. Roy Cooper has pulled out his veto stamp again to reject bills dealing with public school indoctrination and penalties for rioting. Cooper now has vetoed 10 bills this year and 63 bills since becoming governor in 2017.
Mask wars have once again erupted in Buncombe County after the school board voted during a specially called meeting last week, without public comment, to require all students and staff to wear masks while inside, regardless of vaccination status.
Just about everyone has an opinion about how to improve education, and it’s usually an opinion passionately held and forcefully argued. It’s not hard to see why. After all, schools are the single-largest expenditure of state taxpayers’ funds. Educational mediocrity is the common denominator of many other social maladies. Most folks have spouses, siblings, parents, or other family members in the teaching profession. And everyone has been a student.
Public school districts in North Carolina have received about $5.3 billion in COVID-related relief from the federal government. But, on average, school leaders have spent just 13% of that money.
