School policing left out of task force recommendations to make Wake County schools safer

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June 18, 2013 at 2:41 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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Tonight, the Wake County Board of Education will hear recommendations to make its schools safer—however, the task force put together in the aftermath of the Newtown school shootings to develop the safety recommendations did not make school policing one of its areas of consideration, according to Jason Langberg, an attorney for Advocates for Children’s Services and a task force member.

School resources officers (commonly known as SROs) are armed, certified law enforcement officers that are a common fixture in Wake County schools. They are employed by local police departments and the Wake County Sheriff’s Department. Funding for SROs comes from a variety of sources, including local, state and federal funds and grant programs, as well as a special state level fund that is intended to support any school safety measures, not just SROs.

While some contend that the presence of SROs make a school safer, others say that the opposite is frequently the case. Typically, SROs are trained in dealing with criminal actions and not how to handle children’s issues.

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What do teacher assistants really do, anyway?

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June 17, 2013 at 4:00 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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If someone asked you what teacher assistants do in the classroom, could you answer the question?

While budget proposals coming from the Senate and Governor Pat McCrory call for cuts to funding for teacher assistants in grades K-3, let’s consider what TAs accomplish in the classroom every day.

From the North Carolina Association of Teacher Assistants:

Duties of a Teacher Assistant

Daily Routine

  • Teach small reading groups and math groups to meet Common Core Standards
  • Teach remediation groups for grades 3-5 (reading and math)
  • Teach Direction Instruction or other type of phonics program and keep records of student progress
  • Pick up the class lesson if the teacher is called out of the room, therefore instruction does not stop
  • Help teachers with lesson planning and preparing for the lesson

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School vouchers stay in House budget

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June 13, 2013 at 4:46 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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After many hours of debate, today the full House passed their proposed 2013-15 budget, including school vouchers among its many provisions.

Rep. Ed Hanes Jr., a Democrat from Winston-Salem who is a primary sponsor of the school voucher bill that has yet to be voted on by the full House, put forth an amendment yesterday to strip the House budget of the voucher provision.

Citing his commitment to process, Hanes explained both on the House floor and in a press release, “The announcement that HB 944 had been swept into the House Budget created a huge dilemma for me and education advocates across the State.  This action effectively quashed the right of the people to be heard through the voice of their Representatives. While I remain a passionate advocate of all of our children’s constitutional right to an equal opportunity at a sound and basic education, that passion must be balanced with the rights of the people to be heard no matter their personal feelings.”

North Carolina is not the only state where the school voucher debate is raging. In Texas, five school choice bills were introduced during this spring’s legislative session. Members of the Texas House sent up a smoke signal that school vouchers would not be popular when they put forth an amendment to the House budget that would have banned the use of public dollars for private schools. Texas’ school voucher bill, SB 23 or the “Equal Opportunity Scholarship Program,” died before it reached the Senate floor. Read More…

TFA vs. NC Teaching Fellows

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June 12, 2013 at 10:11 amCategory:Uncategorized

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WUNC’s Dave DeWitt has a good story this morning comparing Teach for America in NC to the 30-year old NC Teaching Fellows program.

The NC Teaching Fellows program awards $6,500/year scholarships for tuition at an in state college to North Carolina high school students interested in teaching. In return, students must teach for four years in North Carolina after graduation.

According to DeWitt:

The Teaching Fellows program has had a transformative effect on the profession in North Carolina: currently more than 4,000 teachers are Teaching Fellows. And more than three-quarters stay on as teachers past five years.

Despite these results, the Republican-controlled Legislature abruptly cut the program two years ago.

Teach for America, on the other hand, is gaining momentum in North Carolina:

Teach For America will place more teachers in eastern North Carolina than ever starting this fall, and TFA’s political influence has grown here has, as well. Governor Pat McCrory recently named a former TFA teacher as his new education advisor. Nationally, Teach For America has a budget of around $300 million, drawing donors like the Bill and Melinda Gates and Walton Family Foundations.

Fast forward then to last month, and the State Senate’s proposed budget (pdf). For the third straight year, the Teaching Fellows annual budget of $13 million went unfunded, as it did in the Governor’s version of the budget.

Teach For America, meanwhile, is poised to get a new initial allocation of $6 million in the Senate budget.

While the House budget restores the Teaching fellows program, the Senate is on track to support TFA over the native program that trained and retained such a large percentage of its participants over the years.

The House’s final vote on its budget comes this afternoon.

House committee members vote to include $50 million in budget for private school vouchers

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June 11, 2013 at 4:35 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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Members of the House appropriations committee gathered today to debate their proposed budget for 2013-15.

The budget includes all of the language from the school voucher bill, or HB 944 Opportunity Scholarship Act, which would siphon $50 million over two years from public education and funnel that money to private schools.

Rep. Chris Whitmire, a Republican from Transylvania County, put forth an amendment that would have removed the school voucher language from the budget, calling the voucher bill a “Trojan horse” that would have brought the government into private settings and had not been fully vetted by the entire House. Read More…