Why is school out?
Published May 6, 2015
by Gary Pearce, Talking About Politics, May 4, 2015.
Republican legislators keep undermining public schools. Education goes all but unmentioned in Governor McCrory’s agenda. But Democrats seem to have retreated from the battlefield.
In the 2014 campaign, education was the top issue for North Carolina Democrats – in races for county commissioner, the legislature and even U.S. Senate. National issues and President Obama’s problems eventually – and narrowly – proved overwhelming, but Kay Hagan still nearly won and Democrats still did better in legislative races here than in almost any other state.
Since then, Democrats seemingly have said little about what’s ahead for North Carolina public schools. The focus has been on income equality, middle-class taxes and same-sex marriage.
Yes, those are big issues. And I’m not privy to internal polls. But I’m puzzled by the lack of focus on an issue that has been a winner for Democrats politically for more than 50 years and a walkoff-grand-slam winner for North Carolina over that same half-century.
A never-relenting focus on and ever-rising investments in education – early-childhood, public school, community colleges and universities – transformed North Carolina from a poor, rural state of farms and factories to a booming, bustling center of high-production agriculture, high-end manufacturing and information-era jobs.
Now we’re five years into a forced march away from that path. Some Republicans in the legislature are actively hostile to public schools. It’s telling that Craig Jarvis’ review in the N&O of McCrory’s agenda at midterm – his $2.8 billion bond referendum to upgrade state roads and facilities and debates over economic incentives, Medicaid and RFRA – didn’t once mention the word “education.”
Then you read a warning from Michael Walden, Reynolds Distinguished Professor at N.C. State University, that “over the next 40 years, the number of jobs in the state could actually fall by 1.2 million rather than rise.”
The losses, according to a study he analyzes, would come in jobs like retail salespersons, cashiers, fast-food workers, office clerks, customer service representatives, janitors and cleaners, and auto service technicians.
And losses are least likely in “occupations requiring a high level of complex decision-making, like physicians, nurses, teachers and computer software developers.”
Can you say: education?
And Democrats aren’t telling the public-schools’ success story, raising hell and pushing back?
What am I missing?
May 6, 2015 at 11:29 am
Richard L Bunce says:
Try looking at the traditional government school system assessment scores... the majority of students are not proficient at basic skills... IF your concern was the actual education of students you and they would favor attaching government education funding to the child and let parents decide what is best for their child... but you are concerned about funding the government education industrial complex... the current day $2000 toilet seat.
May 6, 2015 at 9:33 pm
Donald Byrd says:
So I guess the education thing did not work last year so why use it this year?
Maybe the education things are not as bad as some people say they are and the voters figured this out?
May 7, 2015 at 8:37 am
Frank Burns says:
Allow me to explain why the Democrats are in hiding on public education. For all the vaunted programs that they have created, the public is not satisfied with the poor learning environment in the schools and many are fleeing to charter, home school or private schools. The pendulum has swung too far to the students and the administration takes the word of students over the word of teachers. Teachers have no respect and parents are trotting in child advocacy lawyers to make sure the student's get their way. Students are allowed to bring their cell phones into the classroom and with their texting, they completely ignore learning in the classroom. If you ask me to fix it, I will task the wood shops to make paddles for each teacher to administer swats when the students disrupt the class, I would mandate no cell phones allowed in the classroom, students would wear chewing gum on the end of their nose and child advocacy lawyers would be treated the same as potential terrorists. In short, discipline and good order need to return to the classroom.
