CHAPEL HILL – There’s plenty of reform underway in public education in North Carolina, and UNC System President Margaret Spellings highlights several innovations at both universities and K-12 schools in the accompanying video.

• NC Promise:  The NC General Assembly has committed more than $50 million to provide in-state tuition of $500 a semester “to really ramp up affordability,” Spellings says.  “And we’re thrilled about it.”

NC Promise will begin this fall at three UNC campuses:  Western Carolina, Elizabeth City State and UNC Pembroke.

• Improving teacher education:  Spellings hired consultants to “look under the hood” at the university’s 14 colleges of education to make sure, given the legislature’s emphasis on improving elementary reading scores, that the schools are using research-backed methods.

“We can’t move the needle on reading unless we have teachers who are very, very effective in teaching our little children to read,” she says.

• Lab schools:  In 2016, legislators asked the UNC System to create K-12 “lab schools” associated with the colleges of education at eight UNC institutions.

The schools will be operated by Appalachian State, East Carolina, NC Central, UNC Charlotte, UNC Greensboro, UNC Pembroke, UNC Wilmington and Western Carolina.

Spellings says the schools will serve as “innovation laboratories” to apply new ideas and methods in K-12 education.  “We can get our teacher candidates … into classrooms earlier so that they can get a feel for what they’ll encounter,” she says.

“It’s a win-win, really – for the community, for parents who have additional options for schooling, for teacher candidates who can hone their craft earlier, and of course for students who’ll have the benefit of really a lot of focus around our latest thinking on improving education.”