Friday Report – September 22, 2017

The Friday Report

September 22, 2017

The Principal Pay Situation in North Carolina

As the new school year begins, many are considering the ramifications of the new principal pay schedule passed during the long session of the General Assembly.

Critics say some principals will have their salaries reduced under the new plan, but at least one prominent education legislator said fears are overblown. “There is no evil intent on principal pay or class size,” said Rep. Craig Horn, R-Union. “Legislation is not an exact science. We do things that we think will help solve an issue.”

The goals of altering the principal pay schedule were to elevate North Carolina’s low standings — 50th out of all the states and Washington, D.C. — in principal pay and to fix problems with the previous principal pay schedule.

One of the issues receiving attention presently is the so-called “hold harmless” provision of the law which provides that principals would not have a reduction to an amount less than they were making under the old schedule. Without the provision, some principals would not make as much under the new schedule as they did previously. The potential risk affects veteran principals in particular, because the new salary schedule does not take into account years of experience in salary considerations, and it eliminates the longevity pay that favors veteran principals.

However, the hold harmless provision only lasts one year. Some worry the provision will not be extended, and next year some principals’ salaries will plummet. “My biggest beef on this thing, if there’s loopholes, if there’s unintended consequences, we need to address those unintended consequences,” said State Board Vice Chair Buddy Collins. “Veteran principals are losing a substantial amount of pay if the hold harmless is not extended.”

But Horn said if there are principals that stand to lose substantial amounts of pay, the hold harmless will be addressed in the short session of the General Assembly this spring. “Did we intend to get it done perfectly? Well, we would have liked to have, but we don’t kid ourselves,” Horn said. “Did we intend to screw somebody? No. Period.”

Horn also expresses frustration with some of the critics who he said have unfairly used the hold harmless provision to demonize Republicans. He said their fears are theoretical. “That may happen. This may happen. The Earth may explode. To use that as a bludgeon is patently ridiculous,” he said. “It’s fear mongering and political crap at its worst.”

Even if the hold harmless provision is addressed, Keith Poston, director of the Public School Forum of North Carolina, said it is not enough.

“That doesn’t really address the problem. What happens is that the exceptions swallow the rule,” he said. “It’s no longer a new pay plan. It’s a new pay plan, unless your pay goes down, then it’s something else because we have a band-aid on it called a hold harmless provision.”

The structural issues that affect veteran principals need to be fixed, he said. “By targeting things like experience level, longevity pay, targeting things like supplemental pay for advanced degrees, you’re going to hit more veteran educators,” he said. “By taking those things out, you are already putting the most veteran principals at risk.”

Wake Pulling Up the Welcome Mat at Some Schools Because of New Class Size Rules

Engineering specialist Stephanie Wright works with second graders Cohen Hoffman, left, and Dylan Kampfer at Sycamore Creek Elementary School in Raleigh, N.C., on Aug. 24, 2017. Sycamore Creek could stop accepting new transfer students and be put under an enrollment cap to help the school meet new state K-3 class size limits. Photo Credit: Ethan Hyman, The News & Observer. 

More than two dozen Wake County elementary schools will stop accepting new transfer students and potentially make other changes to try to meet new state class size limits that go into effect in 2018.

Wake County student assignment staff said Tuesday they plan to close 25 elementary schools to new transfer students as part of an effort to help them meet smaller state-mandated class sizes next year in kindergarten through third grades. Some schools will also need other strategies, including kicking out some current students and barring newly arriving families from enrolling even if they live right next to the campuses.

School leaders said Tuesday that they’re only taking these approaches because state lawmakers are requiring average K-3 class sizes to drop from 21 students last year to roughly 17 children starting next school year. “We’re struggling because effectively the state legislature dropped the capacity of every one of our elementary schools by about 100 students,” said school board member Jim Martin.

Wake is in a bind because the lower state-mandated class sizes will require the district to create space for the equivalent of 9,500 seats, or 14 new elementary schools. Superintendent Jim Merrill sent a letter last week to Wake County members of the state legislature asking for help with the new K-3 class sizes.

Principals at the majority of Wake’s 113 elementary schools say they can meet the smaller class sizes by taking steps next year such as converting art and music spaces to regular classrooms and increasing class sizes for older children. But principals at 27 elementary schools say even after using those options they will need more help. 

​To continue reading the complete article, click here.

To read more on the class size issues in Wake County, please see the following article:

Find out if your child could be changing Wake County schools next fall​​.

Excerpt from:

Hui, K. “Wake pulling up the welcome mat at some schools because of new class-size rules.” The News & Observer. 9/19/17.

Court: State, Not Counties Accountable for Poor School Funds

Students and parents still fighting for sufficient school funding decades after they were guaranteed the right to a sound, basic education should make demands of the governor and legislators, not county officials, a divided state Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.

Schoolchildren can’t sue Halifax County commissioners for unequally funding the county’s segregated public school districts, a majority of the three-judge panel ruled. Students inside substandard Halifax County Schools’ buildings are sometimes forced to walk through sewage to reach their lockers, yet they get less local tax dollars than the majority white Roanoke Rapids schools, lawyers for five students said.

But the majority in the 2-1 court decision said local families should take their problems to Raleigh since the General Assembly has total control over what counties can do.

The case is the first to address whether local governments have a duty alongside the state to provide every child “an opportunity to receive a sound basic education,” as the state Supreme Court determined in a landmark 1997 case named after one of the suing students, Leandro.

“Plaintiffs’ complaint describes serious problems in the schools in Halifax County, but because this defendant — the Halifax County Board of Commissioners — does not bear the constitutional duty to provide a sound basic education, we affirm the trial court’s order dismissing this action,” Judge Donna Stroud wrote for herself and Judge Lucy Inman.

Instead, it is state officials who have the constitutional obligation to provide basic educational opportunity for every North Carolina child, Inman wrote.

Court of Appeals Chief Judge Linda McGee dissented, reasoning counties can be sued over insufficient school funding since the legislature assigned them financial responsibility for providing buildings and supplies. Lawyers for the students argued that it is the county commissioners who channel disproportionate funding to Roanoke Rapids schools, the only majority-white district of the three created in the 1960s in the county of 52,000 people.

To continue reading the complete article, click here.

To read more on the appeals court decision, please see the following article: Two Court of Appeals Decisions Affect Education Policy.

Excerpt from:

Dalesio, E. “Court: State, not counties accountable for poor school funds” AP. 9/19/17.

Durham, Johnston Schools Ask to Be Excluded from NC’s New Innovative School District 

Photo Credit: WRAL.

As state education leaders try to decide which low-performing public schools should be part of North Carolina’s new Innovative School District, school leaders in Durham and Johnston counties have one message for them – don’t pick us.

The state recently released a list 48 schools being considered for the Innovative School District. The ISD, formerly known as the Achievement School District, will take five struggling schools from across the state and hand them over to charter school operators, who will manage and run the schools in an effort to improve their academic performance. Two schools will be chosen this year, and three next year. 

Several Durham County schools and one Johnston County school are among the 48 schools being considered, but leaders in those two districts say they “take issue with this plan of action” and don’t want to be included “in this experiment.” Their schools are being considered because their performance scores are among the lowest 5 percent in the state. 

In a letter to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction last week, Durham’s Board of Education chairman said the district is already working “to design and pursue innovative strategies” to improve their low-performing schools and asked that they not be included in the ISD.

“(W)e strongly request that the targeted initiatives to transform these schools not be derailed by including them in this experiment,” DPS board Chairman Mike Lee wrote, adding that Durham County residents would not support the “loss of local control” if the ISD took over any of their schools.

Schools chosen for the ISD will be turned over to charter school operators, which means their local school boards will no longer have a say in the staffing, instruction or other educational matters at those schools. However, the school boards will still be responsible for maintaining the buildings, making sure they have the appropriate furniture and equipment and continuing to provide transportation for the students.

Johnston County Public Schools shared similar concerns last week after discovering that one of its schools, Selma Middle, was being considered for the ISD. A district spokeswoman emailed the media to say the district “takes issue with this plan of action, which essentially mirrors receivership.”

To continue reading the complete article, click here.

Excerpt from:

Hinchcliffe, K. “Durham, Johnston schools ask to be excluded from NC’s new Innovative School District.” WRAL. 9/18/17.

Appeals Court Reverses Ruling That Had Favored School Board 

State Board of Education Chairman Bill Cobey (center-right) listens while State Superintendent Mark Johnson gives his monthly address to the board. Photo Credit: WRAL.

Regulations approved by North Carolina state education leaders are subject to review by a commission like most other government agencies, a split appeals court panel ruled Tuesday in another legal setback for the State Board of Education.

The board, which administers the public school system based on the laws of the General Assembly, argued having to send its regulations and policies to the Rules Review Commission delays them for months and conflicts with powers the state constitution grants to it.

In 2015, a Wake County trial court judge sided with the education board. But two of three judges on the Court of Appeals panel reversed that decision, saying the legislature acted within the scope of its own constitutional authority by creating the commission and having board rules scrutinized by it.

“The General Assembly has by statute ensured that the commission is unable to create and impose rules, and has made clear that the commission does not have the authority to review the substantive efficacy of rules proposed by the board,” Judge Lucy Inman wrote in the majority opinion, also agreed to by Chief Judge Linda McGee.

The Rules Review Commission, created in the 1980s by the legislature, which also appoints its members, can approve or disapprove rules. But it’s not supposed to act based on the merits of the regulations, instead rather on more procedural matters, such as whether the proposals are unambiguous.

Lawyers for the education board said the board is exempt because the constitution says it “shall make all needed rules and regulations in relation” to supervising the schools and keeping tabs on money received.

To continue reading the complete article, click here.

To read the court opinion, click here.
​
Excerpt from:
Robertson, G. “Appeals court reverses ruling that had favored school board.” AP. 9/19/17.

NC Public School Teachers are More Absent Than Charter School Teachers, Study Finds

Photo Credit: News & Observer file photo.

More than a third of teachers in North Carolina’s traditional public schools are chronically absent – double the rate of their peers in the state’s charter schools, according to a new national study released Wednesday.

A total of 34.6 percent of teachers in North Carolina’s traditional public schools missed more than 10 days of work because of sick days or personal days, compared to 12.8 percent of teachers in the state’s charter schools. North Carolina’s absenteeism gap mirrored national data found in the report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington D.C.

Charter schools are taxpayer-funded schools that are exempt from some of the regulations that traditional public schools must follow, including the number of sick days and personal days given to teachers who work in traditional public schools.

“We’re not saying teachers should never miss a day or no teacher should be chronically absent,” said David Griffith, the report’s author and a senior research and policy associate at Fordham. “But we’re saying in certain jurisdictions, certain states, there’s clear room for improvement.”

But the report has come under fire from teachers groups who note it was funded by the Walton Family Foundation, a group that supports charter schools. The report was also developed with the help of the National Association of Public Charter Schools.

“Fordham is a biased organization that is driven by an anti-student agenda with anti-public education funders,” Mark Jewell, president of the N.C. Association of Educators, said in a written statement. “The funders are the same organizations trying to dismantle public education in North Carolina through private school voucher schemes and for-profit management organizations. “Public school educators are hardworking and dedicated professionals who put the best interest of our students at the center of lives every day.”

Griffith said the data speaks for itself. 

To continue reading the complete article, click here.
​
Excerpt from:
Hui, K. “NC public school teachers are absent more than charter school teachers, study finds.” The News  & Observer. 9/20/17.

North Meck Balks at $922 Million School Bond Plan. Can CMS Overcome That Resistance? 

Endorsing school bonds tends to be a no-brainer for business leaders.

Good schools attract employers and home buyers, and nothing symbolizes a thriving public education system like new buildings.

But when the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce meets Monday to discuss the $922 million Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools bond that’s on the Nov. 7 ballot, the only question is whether the group will actively oppose the bond or sit idle.

“This bond isn’t going to be helping north Mecklenburg schools in the foreseeable future,” said Lake Norman Chamber President Bill Russell. “There is absolutely no likelihood the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce will be endorsing.”

With Charlotte’s September primary over, public attention is turning to the CMS bond campaign. Both the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Black Political Caucus and the Lake Norman Chamber recently held debates to help them make a decision. The caucus, which is much more likely to support the bonds, votes Sunday.

The $922 million plan is the largest school bond ever put before Mecklenburg voters, second in North Carolina only to the $970 million Wake County voters approved in 2006. Voters are being asked to grant the county authority to borrow money for 10 totally new schools, replacement buildings for seven existing ones and renovations and/or expansions at 12 more.

To continue reading the complete article, click here.
​
Excerpt from:

Helms, A. “North Meck balks at $922 million school bond plan. Can CMS overcome that resistance?” The Charlotte Observer. 9/21/17.

National News

Common Core Used Widely, Despite Continuing Debate

Turner Elementary School Principal Eric Bethel, right, talks to fifth grade student Kierra Porter, during her reading class, at Turner Elementary School in southeast Washington. Bethel says the new guidelines push students to learn “not only the how, but also the why behind the mathematics. Students are learning more and what’s expected of them is much more rigorous than before,” Bethel said. Photo Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP.

Most of the states that first endorsed the Common Core academic standards are still using them in some form, despite continued debate over whether they are improving student performance in reading and math.

Of the states that opted in after the standards were introduced in 2010 — 45 plus the District of Columbia — only eight have moved to repeal the standards, largely due to political pressure from those who saw Common Core as infringing on local control, according to Abt Associates, a research and consulting firm. In Oklahoma, Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill to repeal the standards in 2014 less than six months after defending them in a speech. She said Common Core had become too divisive.

Twenty-one other states have made or are making revisions — mostly minor ones — to the guidelines. Illinois kept the wording while changing the name. In April, North Dakota approved new guidelines “written by North Dakotans, for North Dakotans,” but some educators said they were quite similar to Common Core. Earlier this month, New York moved to revise the standards after parents protested new tests aligned to Common Core, but much of the structure has been kept.

“The core of the Common Core remains in almost every state that adopted them,” said Mike Petrilli, president of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Launched in 2010 by a bipartisan group of governors and state education chiefs, Common Core sought to bring scholastic standards to the same high level nationwide. The standards quickly became controversial when the Obama administration offered states federal dollars to nudge them to adopt it. States’ rights activists cried foul, saying the effort undermined local control. Meanwhile, some teachers criticized the standards as confusing and out of synch with students’ needs, while others feared that non-fiction would crowd out the works of Shakespeare.

President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos spoke out against the standards, but the issue has been largely out of their hands. A 2015 law prohibits the federal government from promoting any set of standards, including Common Core.

A national survey by Education Next, a journal published by Harvard’s Kennedy School and Stanford University, found that support for nationwide academic standards rose over the past two years, as long as the name Common Core was not used.

Measuring the direct impact of Common Core is difficult. A study last year by the Brown Center on Education Policy with the Brookings Institution showed that adopters of Common Core initially outperformed their peers, but those effects faded. It’s also unclear if the gains were caused specifically by Common Core.

“I think it was much ado about nothing,” said Tom Loveless, the author of the report. “It has some good elements, some bad elements. Common Core nets out to be a non-event in terms of raising student achievement.”

Teachers are Quitting Because They are Dissatisfied. That’s a Crisis, Scholars Say

States and districts must find ways to keep teachers in the profession—or they’re staring down the barrel of a growing teacher shortage, researchers and policymakers said at a panel discussion here on Tuesday.

The panel was hosted by the Learning Policy Institute, a California-based think tank led by Stanford University education professor Linda Darling-Hammond, which released a new analysis, Teacher Turnover: Why It Matters and What We Can Do About It. About 8 percent of teachers leave the teaching profession each year, and another 8 percent move to a different school, making the overall turnover rate about 16 percent. (LPI was using nationally representative survey data from the 2012 Schools and Staffing Survey and the 2013 Teacher Follow-up Survey.)

Teacher turnover hurts student achievement, is expensive for schools and districts, and leads to teacher shortages, Darling-Hammond said.

And both teachers who leave the profession and teachers who change schools are most commonly leaving because they are dissatisfied, according to the analysis. See the below graph breaking down why teachers left the profession in 2012-13. (Percentages do not add up to 100 since teachers were allowed to select more than one reason.)

Among those who cited dissatisfaction, 25 percent were referring to testing and accountability measures, 21 percent were unhappy with the school administration, and 21 percent were generally dissatisfied with their teaching careers.

It’s also worth noting that 29 percent of those leaving teaching are taking non-teaching jobs in schools and districts. And nearly a third of teachers who leave eventually return to the profession, estimates suggest.

Here are some other findings:

• In Title I schools, the turnover rate for mathematics and science teachers is 70 percent greater than it is in non-Title I schools.
• Teachers who lack “comprehensive preparation” (and have entered the profession through alternative pathways) are two to three times more likely to leave teaching in their early years.
• Teacher turnover is greater when schools serve primarily students of color—regardless of teachers’ years of experience, certification pathway, or subjects taught.
• Non-elementary teachers are more likely to move schools or leave teaching entirely.

To continue reading the complete article, click here.

Excerpt from:
Will, M. “Teachers Are Quitting Because They’re Dissatisfied. That’s a Crisis, Scholars Say.” Education Week. 9/20/17.

 U.S. Spends Less as Other Nations Invest More in Education

Photo Credit: Hero Images/Getty Images

The world’s developed nations are placing a big bet on education investments, wagering that highly educated populaces will be needed to fill tomorrow’s jobs, drive healthy economies and generate enough tax receipts to support government services.

Bucking that trend is the United States.

U.S. spending on elementary and high school education declined 3 percent from 2010 to 2014 even as its economy prospered and its student population grew slightly by 1 percent, boiling down to a 4 percent decrease in spending per student. That’s according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s annual report of education indicators, released last week.

Over this same 2010 to 2014 period, education spending, on average, rose 5 percent per student across the 35 countries in the OECD. In some countries it rose at a much higher rate. For example, between 2008 and 2014, education spending rose 76 percent in Turkey, 36 percent in Israel, 32 percent in the United Kingdom and 27 percent in Portugal. For some countries, it’s been a difficult financial sacrifice as their economies stalled after the 2008 financial crisis. To boost education budgets, other areas were slashed. Meanwhile, U.S. local, state and federal governments chose to cut funding for the schoolhouse.

“Overall (U.S.) education spending has been cut quite severely in the last few years,” said Andreas Schleicher, who heads the OECD directorate that issued the report. “That clearly puts constraints on the environment you have for learning.”

How lower spending constrains learning is subtle. Schleicher has pointed out for years that there isn’t a clear relationship between money spent and student outcomes. Some countries that spend far less than the United States on education consistently outshine this country on international tests.

And even with the decline in spending, the United States still spends more per student than most countries. The United States spent $11,319 per elementary school student in 2014, compared with the OECD average of $8,733, and $12,995 educating each high school student, compared with an average of $10,106 per student across the OECD.

The way that high-performing countries achieve more with less money is by spending it differently than the United States does. For example, larger class sizes are common in Asia, with more resources instead spent on improving teaching quality. During the period of U.S. budget cuts to education, there weren’t major changes to how the money was allocated.

Opportunities

RACE: Are We So Different?

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Science’s RACE: Are We So Different? exhibit continues at the museum through October 22, 2017.

This exhibition looks at race through the lens of science, history, and personal experiences to promote a better understanding of human variation. Interactive exhibit components, historical artifacts, iconic objects, compelling photographs, multimedia presentations, and attractive graphic displays offer visitors to RACE an eye-opening look at its important subject matter. RACE tells the stories of race from the biological, cultural, and historical points of view offering an unprecedented look at race and racism in the United States.

Admission is free but tickets are required. For tickets, as well as additional details on the exhibit, visit https://naturalsciences.org/exhibits/featured-exhibitions/race.

In addition to the exhibit, a series of Speaker Events which includes Diversity in STEM topics were jointly planned in collaboration with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science and sponsored by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. All of the exhibit events were free of charge and the Speaker and Conversation series were streamed live and recorded for continued access and playback. You may access the series of recordings at the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7dONoqMaCHZ1hXtBTm1wLxEGwNA2W4ju.

Call for Summer 2018 NCSSM Accelerator Course Proposals

The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) is looking for course proposals for their 2018 Summer Accelerator programs. NCSSM’s Accelerator programs, for rising 7th-12th graders, offer talented students innovative courses and opportunities to explore complex subjects, collaborate with peers from around the globe, and gain hands-on experience to kickstart college readiness and career interests. 

Courses will be selected based on the following criteria:

• alignment to NCSSM mission and learning competencies
• uniqueness
• market demand
• cost-effectiveness (past courses costs minus salaries have ranged from $0 to $2300)
• alignment to other NCSSM Online concentrations *Does not apply to Early Accelerator proposals.
• scheduling and availability

NCSSM is open to courses from all disciplines, however the following areas will receive priority consideration from the evaluation committee: biomedical, engineering, fabrication, and coding.

Course proposals will be due by 5pm on Wednesday, October 11th, 2017. Additional information regarding course structure, locations, qualifications, schedules, and more can be found online here.

The submission form for proposals can be found online here.

Upcoming Professional Development at NCCAT

North Carolina educators have plenty of opportunities throughout the fall to attend the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT), a recognized national leader in professional development programming for teachers. Applicants are encouraged to register as soon as possible to ensure a spot. Programs are available to North Carolina educators at the Cullowhee and Ocracoke campuses, online and with NCCAT faculty visiting school districts. NCCAT provides food, lodging and programming. Teachers and or their districts are responsible for travel to and from the center and the cost of the substitute teacher.

For a complete list of upcoming NCCAT programs click here. 

For more information on how to apply for NCCAT programs click here.

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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