When North Carolina lawmakers heard proposals in June to dramatically revamp how charters are funded, public school advocates pleaded for more time.
The bill before the chamber, a state Senate draft authored by a staunch charter supporter would have bound traditional K-12 schools to grant charters access to more pots of public funding. Lawmakers, concerned about the precedent of authorizing such a major change in funding during the chamber’s short session, deferred until next year.
...Erinn Rochelle says she beat herself up for months after her sons’ charter school unexpectedly shut down during its first year of operation.
“Not only did I put my kids there, I recommended that school to my friends,” said Rochelle, whose children entered the brand new StudentFirst Academy in Charlotte in 2013. “Four or five of them decided to enroll their children there too, and it just makes me feel really bad. My name is tarnished.”
...Bill Cobey, chairman of North Carolina’s State Board of Education, has heard all about K12 Inc.’s California settlement, a purported $168.5 million pact with the state’s attorney general amid long-running allegations that the for-profit virtual charter school operator inflated student test scores and attendance to drain more cash from public coffers.
...When leaders in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) issued new rules on transgender students last week, advocates say the system installed the broadest set of school protections yet for North Carolina students, including guarantees that children would be able to use the names, restrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identity.
...For the better part of 24 hours, Anca Stefan’s phone has been humming. Messages, calls, social media notifications are pouring in from her now viral, diaristic account of her arrest, along with 13 other protesters, last week for demonstrating against state education policies near the state capitol in Raleigh.
...Rep. Cecil Brockman is admitting he could have been more eloquent.
The first-term High Point Democrat, co-sponsor of House Bill 1080, perhaps the most controversial K-12 education bill in the legislature thus far this year, was bristling when he rebuffed a fellow Democrat’s calls for teacher appreciation moments ago.
...In the space of one day last week, North Carolina’s virtual charter schools saw their controversial plans for overhauling attendance requirements axed, and then, mostly, restored. Such is the often rapid-fire speed of amendments lobbed in state House and Senate committees as North Carolina lawmakers wrangle over their budget plan this month. But as House leaders approved their spending plan last week and Senate budget chiefs prepared to unveil their proposals this week, one thing is clear, according to the state’s public school advocates: The virtual charters, besieged by high dropout rates and nationwide concerns about poor academic performance, are bound for relaxed regulations in North Carolina anyway.
...Late last month, when Cecil Staton—Republican politician, religious scholar, businessman and right-wing book publisher—was named the future chancellor of East Carolina University, the news came and went with little reaction from most North Carolinians.
...N.C. Rep. Craig Horn, an influential budget writer from Union County who chairs the House education appropriations committee, isn't sure he likes the current salary scale for teachers, the one adopted by lawmakers two years ago that nixes annual raises for teachers in favor of a multi-tiered approach with bigger pay bumps every five years.
...“We all know this. It’s intuitive, but the data is there to support it.”
Emily Greytak, research director at the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN), one of the nation’s leading advocacy and policy organizations for LGBTQ students in K-12 schools, is assessing the startling data about school experience. Greytak’s able to reel off one number after another reflecting, in stark detail, the stunning disparities between LGBTQ youth and their peers when it comes to their school experience.
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