Tag: public education

More looniness on teacher pay?

November 13, 2013 at 8:28 amCategory:Uncategorized

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Pat McCrory 4“The floggings will continue until morale improves” — that appears to be the new motto for the state’s conservative political leaders when it comes to its approach to public education. If you think that’s an exaggeration, check out this story by Travis Fain from the Greensboro News & Record.  As Fain reports:

“Top state officials are kicking around a plan to pay young teachers ‘significantly more money’ than they make now, according to state Sen. Jerry Tillman, who co-chairs a pair of key education committees in the N.C. Senate.

Jerry TillmanSuch a proposal would overhaul the state’s existing pay scale for teachers, jacking up salaries for teachers in their first five years instead putting so much emphasis on longevity, as the current scale does.

Tillman, in town Tuesday night for a political roundtable, said he discussed the plan last week with Gov. Pat McCrory.

‘He’s serious about it,’ said Tillman, R-Randolph.”

To which, all a body can say in response is: Say what? Do these guys not pay any attention at all? Read More…

Student test scores drop significantly due to adoption of more rigorous standards

November 7, 2013 at 2:43 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction has been warning the public for weeks that student performance on standardized tests this year will be dramatically lower than in years past, reflecting the state’s move to align with the more rigorous Common Core standards as well as other college and career readiness standards in all subject areas.

Only 32 percent of students in grades 3-8 were proficient in reading and mathematics in 2012-13 — that’s almost a 27 percent drop from 2011-12, when 58.9 percent of students were proficient. The overall composite proficiency score for all state tests is 44.7 percent, down from 77.9 percent in 2011-12, a 33 percent drop.

The executive summary of the scores can be read here.

“Today we expect student mastery that demonstrates students are on their way to being career and college ready,” said State Superintendent Dr. June Atkinson, who explained that as a result of the higher standards, 2012-13 should be regarded as a transitional year and comparisons to previous years cannot be made.
Read More…

Remarkable, unbefitting vitriol from the NC Senate leader

November 4, 2013 at 11:13 amCategory:Uncategorized

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Phil BergerThe over-the-top invective and mean-spirited attacks from the leader of the North Carolina’s state Senate, Sen. Phil Berger, continue to spew forth with disturbing regularity. Today, using language and uttering accusations that one would have thought unworthy of one of the state’s top elected officials, Berger described modest efforts by the North Carolina Association of Educators and other supporters of public schools to call attention to the state’s ongoing underfunding of its public schools and attacks on teachers as: ”bully tactics of an organized union that puts kids’ safety at risk to gin up its membership and inflate the salaries of its executives.”

Good lord — somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!

The NCAE has, if anything, bent over backwards in recent years to try to work with GOP leaders in the General Assembly. Despite incessant, targeted attacks Read More…

Why teachers and public schools supporters are “walking in” today

November 4, 2013 at 8:31 amCategory:Uncategorized

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There are a lot of reasons that supporters of public education in North Carolina are speaking up and showing their support today by “walking in” to public schools. Today’s “Monday Numbers” edition of the Fitzsimon File spells several of them out with disturbing clarity. 

Yesterday’s editoral in the Charlotte Observer also hit the nail on the head when it explained:

“Supporters of teachers and public schools are encouraged to visit schools, wear red to symbolize support for education, thank teachers in person or leave messages of thanks. Teachers at some schools plan to urge supporters to join school parent groups or volunteer or support schools in other ways. At some schools, there are plans for discussions before and after classes about what teachers are facing each day….

This sounds like a good approach.

GOP Senate leader Phil Berger last week lambasted the ‘walk in’ as a ‘political protest orchestrated by unions” and reminded the teachers that “schools have a duty to educate and protect our children.’ But it is Read More…

The war on public education continues

November 1, 2013 at 9:46 amCategory:Uncategorized

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Public ed cutsYou gotta hand it to the conservative politicians running state government these days; their willingness and capacity for waging war on public schools (what they often derisively refer to as “government schools”) and the educators who make them work remains something to behold.

Fresh off what was quite arguably the worst legislative session for the state’s public schools in memory; state legislators are now attacking already demoralized teachers and concerned parents for having the temerity to utter even a modest peep of concern. The utter spitefulness of these attacks is really something to behold and, is as is so common with conservative fire-breathers, so disproportionate to the protest that it really makes a body wonder who is advising these people.

Honestly, you would think that at some point these folks would figure out that the more they treat teachers and public schools as punching bags, the more damage they are doing to their long-term political prospects.

But I guess when you’re such a true believer in the anti-public education cause that you’re willing to fund schools that teach that slavery wasn’t all bad and that humans and dinosaurs trod the earth together or command teachers to tell untruths about human reproduction, you probably figure might as go all in with the plan to tear down and privatize  the whole system.