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Friday Report – June 30, 2017
by Forum Admin
The Friday Report
June 30, 2017
This week the General Assembly overrode the Governor’s veto of the budget, and SB 257 (Appropriations Act of 2017) goes into effect for the new fiscal year beginning July 1, 2017. After two back-to-back midnight sessions, and an unforgiving schedule of double- and triple-booked Committees all week long, the legislature adjourned in the wee hours this morning under joint resolution SJR 686 until August 3, 2017. Yes, they are coming back to town after July (see bottom paragraph for more details). The frenetic pace of the final days of this Long Session included a rapid fire of education bills – nearly all awaiting action by the Governor:
SB 55 School Bus Cameras/Civil Penalties
This bill expressly authorizes local school boards and county authorities to use automated school bus safety cameras to establish evidence of violators of the law against passing a stopped school bus. It authorizes the creation of local ordinances and fines for passing a stopped school bus as follows: $400 for the first offense, $750 for the second violation, and $1,000 for each subsequent violation of the ordinance. It received bipartisan support in both Chambers and passed the House last night. The bill now goes to the Governor.
SB 78 Cost to Comply/Federal Education Funds/PED Study
This would direct the Department of Public Instruction to study the costs involved in drawing down federal funds for NC public schools (e.g., what are the costs of complying with federal laws before resulting federal funds are sent to the state’s public schools?). The House amended and passed the bill this week that would additionally set up a new “Joint Legislative Study Commission on Efficiency and Cost-Savings in State Government” which is to use a zero-based budgeting review process to study whether there are obsolete programs, cost-reduction opportunities, etc., in the NC Secretary of State’s Department. The bill now goes to the Governor.
SB 599 Excellent Educators for Every Classroom
In 30 pages, this bill would overhaul the current “lateral entry” educator preparation programs, re-vamp Educator Preparation Programs, and further revise and re-codify several educator preparation statutes. For any School of Education or teacher preparation experts, this bill is a must-read. The House revised the bill Monday night, and the Senate did not concur with the changes; however, a Conference Committee made up of a few members of each Chamber hashed out their differences and issued its Conference Report which ultimately both the House and Senate accepted. Now the bill goes to the Governor for review and signature.
HB 135 Technical Changes to Courses of Study Statute
This bill repeals the Basic Education Program in state statute and re-codifies and renumbers a series of long-standing education statutes. This bill should be required reading for all curriculum and instruction experts. It has passed both Chambers and was sent to the Governor on Wednesday.
HB 155 Omnibus Education Law Changes
The changes in this bill range from revisions to education personnel statutes to policy revisions on state-level student mental health concerns. More specifically, it would do the following: 1) changes a current September Class Size report to October of each year; 2) changes career status statutes (in over a dozen pages); 3) newly allows assistant principals in high schools with at least 1,500 students to conduct some of the annual evaluations for beginning teachers; 4) requires the State Superintendent to convene a work group “to study effective and positive intervention measures or policy changes to address risky behaviors and encourage student health and mental health” and report by April 2018; 5) delays implementation of both the State Board of Education’s policies established by its Interagency Advisory Committee and the plans involving school-based student mental health initiatives; and 6) requires a new study that will ultimately recommend further computer science teaching and learning to the General Assembly in January 2018. The bill has passed both Chambers and has gone to the Governor for review and signature.
HB 528 Budget Technical Corrections
This is, ostensibly, the clean-up bill from any “technical” errors or mishaps in the final budget. After a series of amendments, the House concurred with Senate changes at 12:38 am this morning, and the bill will go to the Governor. Significantly, for K-12 Class Size Requirements, this bill includes the “intent to fund” language that was not in the final budget:
“PROGRAM ENHANCEMENT TEACHER FUNDS”
“SECTION 7.14. It is the intent of the General Assembly to use the data collected in accordance with the reporting requirements set forth in Section 2 of S.L. 2017-9 [HB 13 Class Size Requirements] to fund a new allotment for program enhancement teachers for local school administrative units beginning with the 2018-2019 fiscal year.”
HB 704 Divide School Systems/Study Committee
This would establish a Joint Legislative Study Committee on the Division of Local School Administrative Units (LEAs) with a final report by May 1, 2018, on whether and how LEAs should be divided. The primary sponsors of this House Bill represent Wake and Mecklenburg Counties. The bill now goes to the Governor.
HB 800 Various Changes to Charter School Laws
This is the big charter school bill of the Session. On Thursday, the House concurred with Senate changes, and the bill went to the Governor’s desk. The Senate ultimately removed the controversial corporate charter provision; a change sustained in the final version. The bill also expands allowable charter school student enrollment growth (from current law at 20%) to up to 25% essentially without an express affirmative vote by the State Board of Education, unless the charter school is deemed “low-performing” under state law. In July 2018, the bill would expand this permission to up to 30%. The bill also authorizes charter schools to operate NC Pre-K programs and to receive assistance from both the Office of Charter Schools and the Department of Health and Human Services. One final change, unrelated to charter school law, deals with the NC Virtual Public School such that LEAs could partner with other virtual school providers, including for-profit ventures, to offer e-learning opportunities as long as these other providers meet certain eligibility criteria.
Among many other education bills passed this year, there have been a host of local education bills that would change local board of education elections from non-partisan to partisan. To see the rapid-fire bill activity this week, review lists of House & Senate action on bills by day.
Finally, the House and Senate have adjourned for all of July, but will return on August 3, 2017 for veto overrides, potential articles of impeachment, and other matters. Then, they will return again on September 6, 2017, for redistricting, constitutional amendments, etc.; and yet again for their conventional Short Session on May 16, 2018. The NC General Assembly: the gift that keeps on giving.
Forum News
Education Matters Returns Next Week
Education Matters will be taking a short break this week but will return next week. Next week’s show will focus on child well-being in North Carolina and feature guests Dr. Mandy Cohen, Secretary, NC Department of Health and Human Services and Laila Bell, Director of Research and Data, NC Child.
The Public School Forum is seeking nominations for education leaders to be profiled on our weekly TV show, Education Matters.
Do you have a great leader in your local school? Nominate them today! We are seeking leaders who make a difference in their school each and every day.
This includes (but is not limited to) principals, superintendents, teachers, teacher assistants, guidance counselors, parents, students, community volunteers, afterschool providers, and the list goes on!
To nominate an education leader, please fill out the form here.
State News
NC House Overrides Budget Veto, Making the Spending Plan Law
Rep. Nelson Dollar, the House senior budget writer, disputes Gov. Roy Cooper’s budget veto. Photo credit: Clifton Dowell, The News & Observer.
The N.C. House voted 76-43 Wednesday morning to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the Republican-led budget plan, passing the bill into law.
Final approval came three days before the spending plan takes effect July 1 – affecting tax rates, teacher and state-worker salaries, state-agency budgets, jurisdiction over criminal suspects and more.
The Senate had voted to override on Tuesday, just a few hours after the legislature received Cooper’s veto message. In his message, Cooper cited the budget’s income tax cuts and argued it “will cause the state to fail to fund promised teacher salary increases in future years.”
Rep. Nelson Dollar, a Cary Republican and the House’s senior budget writer, disputed the Democratic governor’s assessment. “We have carefully examined the governor’s veto message, we’ve determined that the appropriate course of action for the people of the state of North Carolina is to overturn the governor’s veto,” Dollar said. “This budget follows in that trend that we have established that will keep this state moving forward.”
Two Democrats, Rep. Ken Goodman of Rockingham and Rep. William Brisson of Bladen County, joined all Republicans in voting to override. Another Democrat, Rep. Ed Hanes of Winston-Salem, was present for the session but didn’t vote on the override. Three other Democrats had voted for the budget compromise last week but voted against the override.
No Democrats in the Senate voted for the override on Tuesday.
To continue reading the complete article click here.
Judges Face Hard Task in North Carolina School Power Struggle
The three-judge panel heard oral arguments over a new law that would shift power from the state Board of Education to the elected superintendent. The judges indicated that they would issue their ruling at a later date.
The board argues the General Assembly can’t take away powers given to it by the North Carolina Constitution, while the superintendent argues that the document gives legislators the final say.
“For the sake of argument if the constitution gives them the power to readjust the balance of power, can they go too far?” Judge James Ammons asked an attorney for the board, referring to the General Assembly. “What I’m having a problem with is: How far can they go before it breaches constitutionality?”
The changes, on hold while the case is being decided, came among moves by the Republican-led legislature late last year to curtail the power of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Cooper is scheduled to appoint several Board of Education members during his first term.
The law passed in December would give new state schools Superintendent Mark Johnson some control over the state’s education budget, oversight of charter schools and authority to hire senior-level aides. Johnson, a Republican, defeated a longtime Democratic superintendent last year.
A lawyer for the state board, Bob Orr, responded to Ammons’ question by saying the power shift sought by lawmakers can’t be accomplished by simply writing legislation.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
For-Profit Charter Operators Lobbies for Workplace Schools
The North Carolina legislation, modeled on a six-year-old Louisiana law, would allow corporations that help build or equip taxpayer-funded charter schools to reserve half the seats in those schools as an employee perk. With existing rules already allowing a charter school’s employees and board members to claim places for their own children, the change could leave only a third of the seats in such schools for the general public.
Charter schools operate independently of other public schools under a contract, or charter, that allows exceptions to most state regulations. Enrollment is free, funded with tax dollars corresponding to the number of students they serve.
The North Carolina proposal comes at a time of increased excitement among charter advocates now that their most prominent lobbyist, Betsy DeVos, is President Donald Trump’s education secretary. DeVos spent nearly two decades advocating for private-school vouchers and working for greatly expanding educational choices outside of traditional public schools.
The only workplace charter now operating in the country is affiliated with a massive retirement community in central Florida. Others have closed or businesses have cut ties since the first one opened for the Ryder truck rental company’s suburban Miami headquarters in 1999. A Baton Rouge, Louisiana, medical center plans to open a workplace charter next year as part of a real estate development.
But a company lobbying for North Carolina to allow workplace charter schools believes they allow the private sector to fund school start-ups where states don’t.
Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article157406509.html#storylink=cpy
To continue reading the complete article click here.
NC Lawmakers Challenged to Sign Pledge to Save School Art, Music and PE Programs
A parents group is calling on state lawmakers to sign a pledge to fund arts and physical education teachers so they’re not eliminated when sharply lower class sizes for kindergarten through third-grade go into effect in 2018.
School districts around North Carolina have warned they might have to lay off thousands of art, music and PE teachers in 2018 to help pay for new K-3 classroom teachers when class sizes drop from a maximum of 24 students to 19 to 21 children.
Save Our Schools announced Monday the creation of the “North Carolina Education Pledge” in which the parent group will ask every state legislator to support funding to hire a minimum of four additional classroom teachers for every elementary school. As an alternative, the group will ask lawmakers to pledge funding one specialist for every six classroom teachers allotted.
As part of a one-year reprieve for implementing the smaller class sizes, state legislative leaders said they intended to fund the “enhancement teachers” in 2018.
To continue reading the complete article click here.
The conference report for Senate Bill 599 removes a provision creating a pilot program that could have allowed Teachers of Tomorrow to come into the state sooner than allowed under the original bill.
Texas Teachers of Tomorrow is an alternative, online teacher preparation organization that gave a $5,000 donation to the bill’s only sponsor Sen. Chad Barefoot, R-Wake, in the month prior to the start of the 2017 long session of the General Assembly. Barefoot said he did not solicit the contribution and has never heard of the person who gave it to him on behalf of the organization.
E-mails between Barefoot and a representative of the organization show that Teachers of Tomorrow wanted concessions in the bill that would allow them to come into the state sooner than the bill allowed. Barefoot refused.
But after the bill passed the Senate and went to the House, a House committee added a pilot program to the bill that could have allowed Teachers of Tomorrow to enter the state sooner, as it wanted. Barefoot said publicly he did not support that provision.
Because of the change in the legislation, the bill had to return to the Senate for concurrence after it passed the House, but the Senate voted not to concur. The decision led to a conference committee between the House and the Senate where the pilot program was removed from the bill.
The Senate already adopted the conference report, and the House added its approval last night, sending the bill on to the governor. In presenting the changes from the conference report, Rep. Jeffrey Elmore, R-Wilkes, mentioned several changes but failed to say that the pilot program was also eliminated.
School Districts Too Big or Too Small? NC Lawmakers Want to Study the Issue
Students crowd a stairway as classes change at Heritage High School in Wake Forest NC on Sept. 10, 2015. Photo credit: Chris Seward, The News & Observer.
Amid arguments about whether it could lead to racial segregation, the state Senate voted Wednesday night to study what’s the appropriate size for school districts and to look at ways to break up and merge school systems.
The House had passed a bill that called for forming a legislative study committee to look into whether legislation should be introduced to break up previously merged large school districts. An amended version passed 34-11 by the Senate would expand the committee’s mission to look at determining whether there’s an appropriate size for school systems while also studying how to break up and merge districts.
“There is a statewide issue of knowing the answer to the question what is the appropriate size of an LEA (local educational agency),” said Sen. Chad Barefoot, a Wake Forest Republican who proposed the amendment. “I know that the conclusions that a study like this might come to might have particular ramifications.”
Opponents of House Bill 704 said it was an effort to lay the groundwork for breaking up the Wake County and Charlotte-Mecklenburg school systems, the two largest in North Carolina. Sen. Angela Bryant, a Democrat from Nash County, said the “elephant in the room” is how many of the state’s school systems were the results of mergers to racially integrate schools.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
The new version of the draft state plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is now available online. The public has the opportunity to comment on the plan and can send comments to Lou Fabrizio at Lou.fabrizio@dpi.nc.gov or Donna Brown at Donna.brown@dpi.nc.gov.
ESSA is a re-authorization of the 1965 Elementary and Second Education Act. It was passed in December 2015 to replace No Child Left Behind. States have to comply with the plan through a state-developed ESSA plan that will include things such as school accountability, support for low-performing schools, and more.
Supreme Court Issues Narrow Ruling in Case with Voucher Implications
The state of Missouri violated the U.S. Constitution’s free exercise of religion clause when it denied a church a grant to use shredded scrap-tire material to improve its preschool playground, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 7-2 decision Monday.
The court, however, decided the case on relatively narrow grounds that left the implications for state barriers to religious school vouchers and other school choice measures unclear.
The farther-reaching question underlying the case was whether state constitutional provisions that strictly bar government aid to religion violate religious freedom protections in the First Amendment. Those state-level measures are considered among the last legal barriers to expanding vouchers and tax credits for use at private religious schools.
Missouri is one of 39 states with such “Blaine amendments” in their state constitutions. The provisions are named for James G. Blaine, the 19th-century congressman who led an unsuccessful 1876 effort to amend the U.S. Constitution to prohibit public funding of religious schools at a time when the growing Roman Catholic population was pressing for government funding for parochial schools.
But the Supreme Court did not need to enter that debate to decide in favor of the church.
In an opinion written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court overturned a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, in St. Louis, that had upheld the denial of the grant by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
“The department’s policy expressly discriminates against otherwise eligible recipients by disqualifying them from a public benefit solely because of their religious character,” Roberts wrote.
Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Samuel A. Alito Jr., and Elena Kagan joined Roberts’ opinion in full, while Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch filed concurrences expressing some disagreements with some of the chief justice’s fine points. Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote a short opinion concurring only in the outcome.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a passionate dissent that was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and which Sotomayor read in part from the bench.
“The court today dismantles a core protection for religious freedom provided” in the First Amendment’s clauses guaranteeing free exercise of religion and prohibiting government establishment of religion, Sotomayor said. “It holds not just that a government may support houses of worship with taxpayer funds, but that—at least in this case and perhaps in others—it must do so whenever it decides to create a funding program.”
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos issued a statement praising the ruling. “This decision marks a great day for the Constitution and sends a clear message that religious discrimination in any form cannot be tolerated in a society that values the First Amendment,” she said. “We should all celebrate the fact that programs designed to help students will no longer be discriminated against by the government based solely on religious affiliation.”
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
U.S. House Passes Bill to Overhaul Career-Tech Education by Giving More Power to States
The House passed a reauthorization of the federal law governing career and technical education programs on Wednesday, but how exactly it will mesh with other workforce development efforts afoot in Washington remains to be seen.
Lawmakers backed H.R. 2353, the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, which would overhaul the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. Like the Every Student Succeeds Act, it gives more decision-making and funding authority to states. The bill’s lead co-authors are Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill.
Among other things, the bill would allow states to set aside money for their own competitive-grant or other funding streams for CTE, and increase the permitted share of federal aid states could set aside for their own use from 10 percent under current law to 15 percent. It also is designed to better connect education in local communities to their respective local labor market, and changes the definition of which students are counted as “concentrators” in career and technical education programs. (That last provision has caused some heartburn among CTE advocates who think it’s overly broad, although it hasn’t significantly hampered the legislation.)
The Perkins Act hasn’t been reauthorized since 2006.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Voucher Studies in Louisiana, Indiana Show Problems in Early Years
In results likely to add fuel to an already fiery debate over President Trump’s planned expansion of private school vouchers, new evaluations show mixed results for voucher students in Indiana and Louisiana, particularly in students’ first years in private schools.
“Indiana, Louisiana, even Ohio, they are all very different voucher programs, very different private schools participating, different students that are eligible, and the fact that there is this remarkable consistency in some ways is very surprising,” said R. Joseph Waddington, an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky and co-author of the Indiana program evaluation. “Something that’s really come out of it is … students seem to struggle to integrate when they transition into private schools.”
In Louisiana, researchers from the University of Arkansas found students statewide who switched from public to private schools using the Louisiana Scholarship Program’s lottery showed no benefit in language arts or math after three years, compared to students who remained in public school. Students showed a significant drop in performance in their first year—25 percentile points on average in math—but began to recover over the next two years in their new school.
The Louisiana evaluation found a subgroup of students who started as low-performing in English did grow significantly after three years, as compared to matched students who remained in public schools. However, students who started in private schools in lower elementary grades declined significantly in math during the same time.
The Louisiana evaluations “are significant for their insignificance,” said John White, the state schools chief, in an Urban Institute symposium on the voucher study. “You are left as a policymaker saying ‘what is the significance of [vouchers] from a policy standpoint.'”
White said he was not surprised that public and private schools performed generally equally when measured on the same scale, and argued that the study showed both that vouchers might show promise as an intervention for some students and that voucher programs need regulations and accountability for schools.
“These findings suggest that policymakers should drop ideological cases for either unregulated private school choice or no public funding of private schools at all. Instead, we should advocate for funding, admissions, and accountability systems that make available to the nation’s most disadvantaged children as many verifiably high-quality schools as possible, whether they be public or private,” he said.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
The Forum seeks a Program Coordinator to support the programmatic and policy work of the organization. The Program Coordinator will work with Forum staff in the efficient and high-impact implementation of programs, including the Beginning Teacher Leadership Network, the NC Education Policy Fellowship Program, the NC Center for Afterschool Programs, and the NC Institute for Educational Policymakers. He or she will support major Forum events, including our annual Jay Robinson Awards Gala, Eggs & Issues Breakfast, and Synergy Conference. The Program Coordinator will also contribute to research and communications, as well as the Forum’s social media presence and website.
Interested candidates should submit cover letters and resumes to Rhonda van Dijk at rvandijk@ncforum.org. Please include the job posting title in the subject line. The Forum is accepting applications through July 7, 2017.
The full job description can be found on our website here.
Last Call for 2017-18 NC Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP) Applications!
The Public School Forum is accepting applications for the 2017-18 cohort of the North Carolina Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP).
The Public School Forum has led the North Carolina Education Policy Fellowship Program since 1992, and it has continued to be the only statewide program of its kind that focuses on leadership and professional development in the context of education policy. Each new class continues the trend of high caliber participants and is rich in its members’ range of experiences, both professionally and personally. Fellows come from public schools, higher education, community colleges, state agencies, and a diverse array of education organizations across North Carolina.
Each class includes a cohort of Fellows who focus on education policy issues and the wide range of factors that influence education in North Carolina. The program is designed for Fellows to learn about issues and perspectives in education that they don’t always encounter in their daily work so that they can be more informed, rounded contributors to the critical education debates that shape the quality and focus of schools. Fellows increase their awareness of how public policy is made, learn whom the key players are in the formation of this policy, and become more confident and involved in the policy-making process. Leadership development is a key focus of the Education Policy Fellowship Program.
Application information for both EPFP Central and EPFP West can be found online here. Applications are due by June 30. 2017.
NC Science and Engineering Fair Teacher Workshop Opportunities
Want to learn how to inspire your students to conduct independent research? Interested in learning how to assist students in topic selection, time management, and presentation of science and engineering research projects? Planning your school’s science and engineering research competition? New to the process or looking for a more organized approach?
Plan to attend a NC Science & Engineering Fair Workshop
for the 2017-2018 Academic Year!
Workshops will be offered at the locations below. All workshops run from 9:00am to 3:30pm and include coffee, snacks and lunch.
July 19 – NC Center for Engineering Technology, Hickory
July 27 – Biogen, Research Triangle Park
July 28 – Triad Math and Science Academy, Greensboro
There is a $15 registration fee but all attendees will receive a $65 stipend for participation and 0.5 CEU for completion of the workshop.
ONLY Teachers & Administrators in grades 3 – 12 are eligible to participate. Participants will be asked to implement a science and engineering fair for your class, grade-level or school during the 2017-2018 academic year andcomplete a survey spring 2018.
The following topics will be discussed during the workshop
Learn how to foster and guide scientific and engineering research in the classroom.
Learn how to initiate, manage, and evaluate student science and engineering research projects.
You will be guided through the steps in planning a school or district science & engineering fair.
Workshops are sponsored by the Biogen Foundation.
Eastern NC Educators Invited to Attend Free Teacher Leadership Symposium
The Kenan Fellows Program for Teacher Leadership is pleased to announce its inaugural North Carolina Teacher Leadership Symposium on Tuesday, Aug. 1 in Greenville. As Lead Champion, the Biogen Foundation has made it possible for the Kenan Fellows Program to provide this Symposium at no cost to attendees. The event includes a plated lunch, a networking reception, concurrent professional development sessions, and keynote speakers.
This one-day immersive event will feature concurrent sessions on project-based learning, technology integration, interdisciplinary instruction, building leadership capacity, inquiry-based instruction, developing successful grant proposals, and more!
Educators in the Kenan Fellows Alumni Network will lead the one-day Symposium. These talented Fellows have developed expertise across a wide variety of innovative and effective educational practices that are particularly pertinent to teachers who seek to grow professionally and have a powerful impact in and beyond the classroom.
Registration is open to K-12 educators from 27 Eastern North Carolina school districts:
Beaufort, Bertie, Camden, Carteret, Chowan, Craven, Currituck, Dare, Edgecombe, Gates, Greene, Halifax, Hertford, Hyde, Jones, Lenoir, Martin, Nash, Northampton, Onslow, Pamlico, Perquimans, Pasquotank, Pitt, Tyrrell, Washington, and Wilson.
WHEN
Tuesday, August 1, 2017 from 9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
The Friday Report is published weekly by the Public School Forum of NC and is distributed to Forum members, policymakers, donors, media, and Forum subscribers. Archived editions can be found at www.ncforum.org.
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