SANFORD (October 10, 2023) – Is North Carolina’s dramatic expansion of vouchers for private schools – with no limits on family income – an effort to find what’s best for each child? Or an effort to undermine and divert funds from public education? A debate on those questions at the Dennis A. Wicker Civic &… READ MORE
Teachers in peril
CHAPEL HILL (August 31, 2023) – If the killing of a professor by one of his students Monday at UNC-Chapel Hill tells us nothing else, it tells us how treacherous teaching has become in this country. We still don’t know the shooter’s motives. We still don’t fully know whether the shooter intended to kill more… READ MORE
NC’s on a roll – but 31,000 graduates short
RALEIGH (February 6, 2023) – North Carolina’s economy is on a roll. But we’re still 31,000 graduates short of where we need to be to fill the jobs rolling into the state,1 according to a goal state leaders set in 2019. “When we talk to the CEOs … the three most important issues that they… READ MORE
2022: An anxious year
RALEIGH (December 29, 2022) – 2022 has been an anxious year for North Carolina. As the nation stumbled out of a pandemic, inflation spiked, interest rates rose, shortages in the state’s teaching workforce grew larger and battles over budgets – both in the legislature and in court – grew more sharply partisan. And leadership in… READ MORE
Where We Stand: The free market is working
RALEIGH (Oct. 20, 2022) – For those who like to preach about free markets – well, the free market is working. And would-be teachers are voting with their feet: The free market works when you offer educators wages that force them to take second jobs – and when school opens with 4,400 vacant teacher positions… READ MORE
UNC System: Disinvesting in public universities
RALEIGH (October 13, 2022) – North Carolina has an ambitious goal to have 2 million people ages 25-44 with a college degree or credential by 2030. Then why do we continue to disinvest in our public universities? The state spent $2,900 less per student in the University of North Carolina System in 2020-21 than it… READ MORE
Community Colleges: What don’t we get?
RALEIGH (October 6, 2022) – North Carolina is rated the No. 1 state in the nation for business.1 Then why can’t we do a better job paying the people who train our workers? Community colleges are at the heart of training North Carolina’s workforce for several big incoming employers: Apple. Google. Boom Supersonic. VinFast. Wolfspeed… READ MORE
K-12: Symptoms of lousy pay
RALEIGH (September 29, 2022) – Imagine you’re a ninth-grade math teacher with 36 students in your class. Beyond the histrionics and hormones that rage at that age, just how much attention can you give each of those kids? Yet with thousands of empty teacher jobs across the state, such class sizes happen even in 2022… READ MORE
Early Childhood: Do what it takes
RALEIGH (September 22, 2022) – Everyone has taken a hit during the COVID pandemic. But some sectors – especially pre-school for our youngest learners – have taken a bigger hit than others. Any way you paint it, it’s not a pretty picture. Child-care workers in North Carolina made a paltry $24,600 a year in 2020…. READ MORE
NC Pre-K: Pay the folks who teach our kids
RALEIGH (September 22, 2022) – NC Pre-K is an effective, nationally recognized program launched by former Gov. Mike Easley for at-risk 4-year-olds. Yet, as researchers from the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University found before the pandemic in 2018, it reached only 47% of eligible children. And 53% – nearly 33,000… READ MORE