In 1959, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (N.C. DPI) published a guide to observing "special days" in the state's public schools. Inspired by N.C. DPI's "Observance of Special Days" guide, I think our public elementary schools should reexamine the idea of dedicating certain...
Published: Friday, January 23rd, 2015 @ 12:26 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Reporter Lynn Bonner and the News and Observer showed us once again why people have stopped buying newspapers: Reporters keep trying to make the news, not report it.
Published: Saturday, December 6th, 2014 @ 4:12 pm
By: Civitas Insitute
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The Annual Report on Teachers Leaving the Profession is here!
Published: Friday, December 5th, 2014 @ 3:26 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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After state legislators approved a ten percent reduction to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction's (DPI) $70 million budget, state education officials and their boosters sounded the alarm.
Published: Tuesday, November 11th, 2014 @ 5:54 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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After state legislators approved a 10 percent reduction to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction's $70 million budget, state education officials and their boosters sounded the alarm.
Published: Monday, October 20th, 2014 @ 11:27 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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One would think that the process of comparing and reporting test scores would be a straightforward matter. In North Carolina, state standardized testing is anything but straightforward.
Published: Monday, September 15th, 2014 @ 12:44 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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School accountability comes in two forms -- parental choice and testing.
Published: Tuesday, September 9th, 2014 @ 4:39 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Standardized testing for public school students concluded last month, but the debate about the state's accountability system continues.
Published: Thursday, July 17th, 2014 @ 12:29 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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The N.C. Senate proposed reducing the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) budget by 30 percent, while their counterparts in the House proposed a 1 percent cut.
Published: Wednesday, July 2nd, 2014 @ 12:53 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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The N.C. Senate proposes reducing the state Department of Public Instruction's budget by 30 percent, while the House proposes a 1 percent cut. Should North Carolina put DPI on a diet?
Published: Friday, June 20th, 2014 @ 5:28 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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The annual teacher turnover report produced by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction shows the number of public schoolteachers who've left their jobs across the state during the past year.
Published: Sunday, June 15th, 2014 @ 2:18 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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A distance-education professor is East Carolina University's recipient of one of the state's highest teaching honors.
Published: Tuesday, April 1st, 2014 @ 2:15 pm
By: ECU News Services
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The NC General Assembly should create two permanent commissions that would be charged with raising the quality and rigor of state English Language Arts and mathematics standards, curricula, and assessments.
Published: Sunday, March 2nd, 2014 @ 10:20 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Two new permanent commissions should help North Carolina leaders decide whether to modify or replace controversial Common Core public school standards.
Published: Wednesday, February 26th, 2014 @ 10:47 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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I have a pretty utilitarian view of class sizes. Sometimes smaller class sizes make a big difference. Special needs students and those who require intensive instruction or remediation surely benefit from smaller classes.
Published: Saturday, February 8th, 2014 @ 7:45 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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The story began in the early 1990s, when Baker lived in Houston, Texas, with his family. He had recently sold his computer company and was looking for a new pursuit to spice up retirement.
Published: Sunday, January 26th, 2014 @ 1:13 pm
By: John William Pope Foundation
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Since Jim Hunt's final term as governor, North Carolina policymakers and education activists have been fixated on raising the salaries of K-12 public school teachers to a "national average" compiled by the nation's largest teachers union, the National Education Association.
Published: Wednesday, January 15th, 2014 @ 1:43 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Recent headlines have called attention to the issue of state public school textbook funding. Partisans have tried to score political points with quotes like the following...
Published: Thursday, January 2nd, 2014 @ 3:06 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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It has been nearly three years since the left-leaning Center for American Progress published a superb report, Return on Educational Investment: A District-by-District Evaluation of U.S. Educational Productivity. In the report, CAP Senior Fellow Ulrich Boser made the case that decades of...
Published: Monday, December 16th, 2013 @ 9:06 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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The table represents full-time equivalent (FTE), state paid, classroom teachers as of the 3rd pay period. The FTE counts were obtained through the NC Department of Public Instruction's (DPI) Educational Directory and Demographical Information Exchange (EDDIE) database.
Published: Sunday, December 15th, 2013 @ 1:05 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Some left-wing commentators have speculated that a sizable number of public school teachers are leaving North Carolina to teach in states that are, presumably, more hospitable to the profession. They want the public to believe that policies instituted by Republican lawmakers are to blame. It is...
Published: Saturday, December 7th, 2013 @ 6:34 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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A week before each monthly NC State Board of Education (SBE) meeting, state board staff post an agenda and meeting materials on the board's meeting website.
Published: Friday, December 6th, 2013 @ 11:27 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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There's nothing worse than a complainer - except a complainer who expects someone else to solve a problem. So I have a challenge for conservatives who, with good reason, rail against the state of public education in North Carolina: If you truly believe individual responsibility is a fu
Published: Friday, November 22nd, 2013 @ 1:24 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Don't panic. That's the message most of us have been hearing all day from the Department of Public Instruction (DPI).
Published: Sunday, November 10th, 2013 @ 9:54 pm
By: Civitas Insitute
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Well, it appears that public education is back in the news. The North Carolina Bankers Association - of all groups - has endorsed the Common Core curriculum for the state's public schools.
Published: Friday, November 8th, 2013 @ 10:26 pm
By: Brant Clifton
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I found a quite provocative post on a great new web site called The Federalist about North Carolina's public school system and its finances - a subject that Bill Barber and his mob, and their media lapdogs have been beating us over the head with.
Published: Monday, October 14th, 2013 @ 11:12 am
By: Brant Clifton
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Remember when debates over educational standards were "wonky" (read: boring) discussions of goals for student learning? Unfortunately, those days are long gone.
Published: Friday, October 11th, 2013 @ 2:05 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Have you ever gotten a cringe-worthy progress report or report card from your child's school? Just about every parent will have this experience at least once. If the grade isn't what you expected or wanted, do you blame the school for sending you the report card? Of course not. Like it or not...
Published: Wednesday, September 25th, 2013 @ 3:34 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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The superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction, June Atkinson, has insisted that teachers were a crucial part of the state's planning process for Common Core.
Published: Thursday, September 19th, 2013 @ 5:40 pm
By: Civitas Insitute
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Misallocated mileage reimbursement funds found in two separate investigations of state agencies expose the difficulty of supervising work-at-home state employees and might be only part of a larger problem, State Auditor Beth Wood said.
Published: Thursday, August 29th, 2013 @ 4:39 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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An editorial the Fayetteville Observer published in late June declared that North Carolina is facing a teacher shortage because "teacher pay stinks." This assessment of the teacher labor supply had been prompted by remarks by Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson, who speculated that...
Published: Thursday, August 15th, 2013 @ 8:10 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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State Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson said her concerns about allowing students to use vouchers to offset the cost of private schooling was more a principled support of public schools' role in modern society than the effect vouchers could have in meeting individual children's...
Published: Tuesday, August 13th, 2013 @ 10:11 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Governor Pat McCrory released the following statement after overall high school graduation rates in North Carolina rose to 82.5 percent, a 14 point improvement since the 2006 academic year.
Published: Friday, August 9th, 2013 @ 12:18 pm
By: Stan Deatherage
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