Judge Manning: “I Had No Fuss With the Legislature” | Eastern NC Now

Publisher's note: The author of this post is Terry Stoops for the John Locke Foundation.

    Judge Howard Manning oversaw the Leandro v. State of North Carolina case for decades. In an interview with David Crabtree of WRAL, he praised Phil Berger and the Republican General Assembly for their focus on reading in the early grades. He is skeptical of the WestEd report.

    Highlights:

    "I had one guy from Hoke County scream at me...Just shut up, judge, and send me the money."

    "When I got through with it initially, I realized that money can't buy you quality. You can throw millions of dollars into a school system but if you don't have that teacher in the classroom who can put their hand on their heart and say 'this is what I know these children can learn and I want them to learn and expect them to learn'...you have to start with that. You don't just raise everybody's salaries by $10,000 a year and expect to have all grades go up by 20% because it's not going to happen."