Best NC leading the way in public education
Published March 24, 2015
Editorial by Winston-Salem Journal, reprinted from News and Observer, March 23, 2015.
The News & Observer of Raleigh published a longer version of this editorial last week.
While many factions are embattled over education, an important alliance has been engaged in improving it. Best NC is a business-driven effort to move the state’s education system from adequate to excellent. It’s a good cause, but not necessarily an altruistic one. The state’s businesses know that they have a shortage of well-qualified workers now – 40 percent report openings in “absolutely critical” positions – and the shortage will eventually impede the state’s economy unless its education system improves.
Best NC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan coalition founded in 2013, has brought together business and philanthropic leaders, educators and government officials to craft a vision of education in North Carolina from pre-K to graduate school. It calls for strong funding, broad cooperation and high expectations. And it may be the state’s best chance to put aside the fighting and focus on achieving.
Best NC Chairman Walter McDowell, the retired Wachovia leader, told reporters and editors at The News & Observer last week, “Success in public education is a shared responsibility. It is what we must do, and we must go out and do it together.”
The group published a draft report in February that draws on months of meetings by 325 people in 18 working groups to crystallize a vision for North Carolina’s education system. The report is being circulated among all who have a stake in education. In April, the group will push to have educators, government officials and businesses leaders collectively support the strategic plan that aims to make North Carolina’s education system the best in the nation.
To move North Carolina from slipping to gaining, Best NC proposes these steps: support students with more resources, make a teaching career here competitive in pay and benefits with other top professions and raise expectations by making readiness for college and work a priority for every student.
A vision alone won’t change the downward drift in North Carolina’s education system, but people working on it together will.
March 24, 2015 at 1:24 pm
Richard L Bunce says:
Curious that Best NC website... only mentions government school systems... students in private school systems or homeshooled are not important. Also in Core Values under Collaborative bullet does not mention parents... just the usual members of the government education industrial complex and I suppose big government leaning business interests. Formed in 2013... to oppose the new NC Legislature Majority for sure.
