NC SPIN:   State of Education in NC, Education Resources, Education Outcomes and The Year Ahead in Public Education.

November 26, 2016 at 7:23 pm
Paul Slobodian says:

Tom,

As you may recall from a piece that ran in the News and Observer, I see four important elements, briefly described below:

1. IDEOLOGY. Increasingly our teacher colleges push the Social Justice agenda. This teaches teachers and students that they are victims of an exploitive business/capitalist agenda and that the deck is stacked against minority and low socio economic status students.

4. The STRUCTURE of our ed. System. You did discuss this with a discussion of charter schools and school choice, vs. monopoly public education dominated by highly influential and powerful teacher unions.

I suggest you have a show on the PROCESS of education as this is the element most harming our low socio economic students.

November 26, 2016 at 8:27 pm
Marena Groll says:

All male panel ...are there no women that are competent to speak about the state of education in NC?

November 27, 2016 at 9:52 am
Barbara Ward says:

Dear sirs:

I watched your special program on education today. I was disappointed, especially by the lack of viewpoints and erroneous assumptions. I have taught in NC public schools for 44 years (since 1973) at the middle and high school grades. I attended grades 7-12 in Charlotte-Mec from 1963-1969 when the schools were segregated (I am a white female). And I attended K-6 in a small but dynamic schools system in New Jersey from 1956-1963. You might say I have seen a lot of great and terrible schools.

Viewpoints were missing. Where were teachers, principals, administrators or for that matter anyone other than white, middle class conservative males?

Assumptions: businesses can fire or refuse to hire people. Public schools have to take everyone. At least that is the assumption. When I was a student at McClintock Jr. High and East Mec, no minorities were allowed. Females were not welcome in science or math classes. In the 1970s, 80s and early 90s, students who came from poor families, minorities and many female students were encouraged to drop out and work in the mills. Women and minorities were still discouraged from taking math or science. Those former students, who were not welcome in the public schools are the parents and grandparents of the students we now have. Is it so surprising that many come to school unprepared or not interested in school? What is encouraging is that many of those parents do want better for their kids but do not know how to help. North Carolina is reaping the bad education it sowed years ago. Governor Hunt had the courage, intelligence and political smarts to build up the schools and try to improve education for everyone. Where is the political leadership today to do so? We can't even get textbooks because funding has been cut so much. I had to get a grant so that my 7th grade social studies students would have textbooks.

Today we want every child to come to school and get an education but we have many students who, forty years ago, the schools would not let in the door. Educating every child is one of the greatest investments North Carolina can make in its future prosperity.

Teachers: You did have one important fact about teachers-since teachers are only paid about one-fourth what other college professionals (with a B.A. or B.S.) are paid, very few college bound students consider education as a career. For years I worked two or three jobs in addition to teaching to make ends meet. It is sad that today many reachers with years of experience still have to work multiple jobs today. What other professional career do you know of that this happens? Doctors? Lawyers? Engineers? None, of course because they are paid a reasonable salary. And if those professionals get advanced degrees, which are usually paid for by their employers, they get higher pay. That used to be true in education for higher degrees used to pay higher salaries, but not any more. Why did teachers get master's degrees? To improve their knowledge in their fields or advance their teaching skills. And teachers had to pay for this themselves. It is as though the state legislature wants teachers but does not want teachers to be too well educated.

Charter schools: Yes, some are successful, such as Gray Stone in Stanly county. But of course if you take the top students from five counties, the odds are that you will have a successful school. Why was Gray Stone established? The local public schools became so over focused on sports that the parents of colllege bound students were frustrated by the lack of academic preparation for college. That was from a long tradition of local control where the values were skewed to sports instead of education. When every subject was tested, then local school systems realized they had to return to teaching subjects that all students needed.

I have had students come to public schools from charter schools. Not one was well prepared for school and many were years behind in reading. And though charter schools, as state funded schools, are required to take exceptional children (those with mental or physical disabilities), few EC students are so enrolled. They come to the regular public schools.

School funding: In the last ten years funding for education has fallen in every respect. Teacher salaries are so low that we cannot attract or keep teachers. Facilities are not well maintained. Few new schools are built. Where are the funds from the lottery that were supposed to go to build new schools or renovate old ones? Instead of cutting class sizes, as was done under Governor Hunt's administration, class sizes have doubled, yet we are held to high standards and test scores. We do have computers in the schools, but the technology people see to think they know better than the teachers what we need. Every child in my school has a school provided Chromebook, but we can't get science, math or social study textbooks even though we need them. It is as though everyone is given a free hammer and thus we have to drive nails all day even though there are other ways to teach.

Lack of respect for teachers: This was not even mentioned on your program. In addition to the low pay, the lack of respect for advanced degrees, and not listening to teachers when they ask for basic supplies like textbooks, there seems to be a war on the educational profession by the state legislature. First the legislature tried to stop payrolll deductions for dues for teacher associations. Then the legislature did away with tenure. Tenure protected teachers from poor administrators. Remember the local school systems that were skewed towards sports? There were years when teachers without tenure were fired because the local school hired "teachers" based on only their coaching ability. And this students' education suffered for years. Of the hundreds of teachers I have known over the years, few tenured teachers were poor teachers.

So what can North Carolina do to improve education? First, stop bashing and underpaying teachers. You get what you pay for. Second, invest in education that takes into consideration the whole child. In K-12, every child should have physical education, a second language, music and art every day in addition to the "basics" of reading, math, social studies and science. For example, in that xcellent New Jersey public school I attended K-6 in the 1950s and early 1960s we had,in addition to the basics, music that helped use read and do math in different ways, as well as learn to compose music that taught patterns, organization, math and writing skillls that I still use. We had physical education every day that instilled a respect for self and health. By learning a second language I became much better at reading and speaking English as well as learning to see people who were different from me as, first, real people, and second that not everything has to be done the same way.

Your program could be so much better if you sought out people who really had thoughtful ideas instead of just mouthing false assumptions to support one point of view.