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The Friday Report
August 24, 2018
Forum News
This Week on Education Matters: Work-Based Learning
Employers across the U.S. and here in North Carolina report they have more jobs available than the number of qualified applicants to fill them. Work-based learning opportunities have been expanding here for both students and educators to give them greater exposure to the rapidly changing workplace. This week we explore some promising efforts to help close the skills gap by linking business and education to benefit both employers and our students.
Guests:
- Tracy Bell, NBCT Hope Street Group NC Teacher Voice Network Fellow (pictured above, left)
- Albert Eckel, Board Chair, NC Business Committee for Education (pictured above, right)
- Dr. Matthew Meyer, Associate Vice President, NC Community Colleges (pictured below, right)
- Molly Osborne, Director of Policy and Engagement, EdNC (pictured below, left)
When and Where to Watch Education Matters
Saturday at 7:30 PM,
WRAL-TV (Raleigh/Durham/Fayetteville)
Sunday at 8:00 AM,
FOX 50
(Raleigh/Durham/Fayetteville)
Sunday at 6:30 AM and Wednesday at 9:30 AM, UNC-TV’s North Carolina Channel (Statewide)
The North Carolina Channel can be found on Time Warner Cable/Spectrum Channel 1276 or check your local listings and other providers here.
Online at https://www.ncforum.org/.
Education Matters is also available as a podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Overcast, and Google Play Music.
Public School Forum’s NC Resilience and Learning Project Expands into Six New School Districts
NC Resilience & Learning Project Program Coordinator Christy Lockhart leading a training at a back to school conference in Rowan-Salisbury.
The Public School Forum of NC’s Resilience and Learning Project will expand into six new school districts and continue working in the two 2017 pilot school districts across North Carolina this fall to create safer and more supportive learning environments for students, especially where trauma is prevalent in their student populations. Local school districts where trauma-sensitive learning environments will be newly developed this year include Nash-Rocky Mount, Elizabeth City-Pasquotank, Halifax, Johnston, Greene, and Alamance-Burlington. The Project will also expand to new partner schools in Rowan-Salisbury and Edgecombe, where the work began this past school year.
“We’re pleased to be able to expand this important work beyond our initial pilots in Edgecombe County Schools and Rowan-Salisbury Schools,” said Elizabeth DeKonty, Director, NC Resilience & Learning Project. “The early results from this program, which helps schools better support children dealing with trauma, are promising and we believe this approach to trauma-informed learning inside the school can make an enormous difference for children across North Carolina.”
The NC Resilience and Learning Project is a whole school, whole child framework to create trauma-sensitive schools that will improve academic, behavioral, and social-emotional outcomes for students. During its 2017-18 pilot year, the project worked in three schools in Edgecombe and Rowan-Salisbury school districts; the best practices and insights gleaned during this initial year of programming will inform efforts to develop trauma-sensitive schools in these six new districts beginning this fall.
To continue reading the complete press release, click here.
Excerpt from:
Color of Education: An Evening with Nikole Hannah-Jones
This fall, the Public School Forum of North Carolina, in partnership with Duke Policy Bridge and the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University, will host the first in a series of annual summits and convenings focused on race, equity and education in North Carolina under the banner “Color of Education.” The kick-off event will feature award-winning New York Times Magazine reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones.
Color of Education: An Evening with Nikole Hannah-Jones
When: Tuesday, October 2nd at 6:00 PM
Where: Duke University at Penn Pavilion
This event is now SOLD OUT.
The event is sponsored in part by the Grable Foundation and Maynard Family Foundation.
2018 North Carolina Education Primer
Education policy involves a wide range of interconnected issues such as financing and facilities, accountability and assessment, technology and teachers, and so on. In order to make well-informed and evidence-based decisions, policymakers face the challenge of studying a myriad of complicated educational issues, which is no easy feat. To that end, the Public School Forum has created the North Carolina Education Primer, a fact-based introduction to educational policymaking in North Carolina.
The Education Primer does not pretend to be exhaustive; rather, it is an introduction to the many aspects of the state’s public school system and the policy issues we face today. It is intended to be a resource for elected and appointed officials, as well as candidates for public office, as they aim to tackle these policy issues in the General Assembly, their local communities, or in their schools.
The 2018 North Carolina Education Primer is now available online as a PDF at https://www.ncforum.org/policymakers-education-primer-2018/.
For additional information or questions regarding the Primer, please contact Lauren Bock, Director of Policy and Programs at [email protected].
State News
Charlotte’s Boldest Bid to Undo School Segregation Is About to Become Reality
Diane Brooks and her daughter, Zaniah Ford, talk about what Zaniah liked at Billingsville Elementary last year and what will change in 2018-19. Photo Credit: Reed Klass, The Charlotte Observer.
As the last school year drew to a close, yellow school buses made a two-mile shuttle along Charlotte’s Randolph Road, taking some Billingsville Elementary students to Cotswold Elementary and some Cotswold students to Billingsville.
A similar exchange was happening between Dilworth and Sedgefield elementaries, just south of uptown.
The children were checking out their new schools and new classmates. It was a warmup for Monday, when the boldest part of a student assignment plan that riveted the community for two years becomes reality.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:
School Lunch Programs Becoming More Essential for North Carolina Families
Child nutrition assistant Denise Ballentine passes out lunches to pre-K students at Blue Ridge School in Cashiers.
Photo Credit: Nick Haseloff, Carolina Public Press.
A majority of North Carolina parents lack the financial resources to provide school lunches for their children without assistance, according to federal data, a situation that has worsened in recent years.
Most children in North Carolina participate in the National School Lunch Program, which provides free and reduced-price school lunches to families facing financial hardship. In the 2016-17 school year, 59.8 percent of public school students in the state received lunches through this program, according to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. That’s 10 percentage points higher than the level of participation a decade earlier.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:
Report: NC Among 10 ‘States for Concern’ for School Violence, Threats
Photo Credit: JJ Thompson, Unsplash.
North Carolina is among 10 “states of concern” when it comes to school violence and threats. Half of all incidents of school violence and threats of violence during the 2017-2018 school year were logged in just 10 states according to a report released Monday from an organization that studies school violence.
The report from the Educator’s School Safety Network found that of 3,654 reported incidents of violence and threats of violence, half came from what the organization calls its top 10 “states of concern.”
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:
Almost All New Staff Will Greet South-Ashpole Students
Southside Ashpole’s new principal, Bruce Major (right), walks the halls of his new school with Tony Helton, CEO of Achievement for All Children, which is the managing partner of the school. Photo Credit: The Robesonian.
With the start of school nine days away, students returning to Southside-Ashpole Elementary School won’t see many familiar faces among the ranks of teachers and administrators.
The school, with about 200 students, was taken over by North Carolina’s Innovative School District, which rehired just two teachers. The new staff and leadership will attempt to turn a failing school, where fewer than one in five students are working at grade level, into an “A” school in five years.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:
Bigelow, S. “Almost all new staff will greet South-Ashpole students.” The Robesonian. 8/18/18.
‘Dream Big’: Rowan-Salisbury Teachers Prepare for Start of School Year
Rowan-Salisbury Schools held its annual Back to School Conference for teachers and principals Tuesday morning.
Photo Credit: Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.
Teachers kicked off a new school year with a bash Tuesday at a districtwide Back to School Conference. More than 1,000 teachers and other educators poured into the East Rowan High School gymnasium to learn more about becoming a renewal school district and to get in a mindset of learning.
The annual, all-day conference offers teachers a chance to be inspired, learn more about technology offerings, and take part in short professional development sessions.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:
Lead in Faucets at Guilford County Schools Points to Potential Risk Elsewhere
Photo Credit: Henry M. Diaz, Flickr.
Guilford County Schools is working to protect its students’ drinking water after the county identified three school faucets with elevated lead content.
The school system is conducting an inventory of all of the faucets in the district this week to identify similar faucets before its traditional schools start up next week. However, there is no guarantee that similar faucets are not in other schools in the state.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:
Community Leaders Launch Durham Public Schools Foundation
A group of Durham community leaders and public school advocates have launched the Durham Public Schools Foundation to catalyze innovative ideas and foster community engagement that will accelerate the transformation of the Durham Public Schools and ensure success and equity for every student.
The DPS Foundation will unite public and private-sector resources and leaders around strategies to strengthen DPS. In the upcoming year, the Foundation will pilot grants for DPS teachers, collaborate with business and community leaders on efforts to champion Durham Public Schools and engage with DPS students, educators and families to listen to and support their ideas for ensuring every student can thrive in DPS.
You can learn more about and contribute to the DPS Foundation at bullcityschools.org and follow their activities on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @bullcityschools.
Gene Arnold Awarded State Accolade
Former state Rep. Gene Arnold sits in his home in Rocky Mount. Photo Credit: Sarah Louya, Rocky Mount Telegram.
A retired local lawmaker has been recognized for his dedication to public service. Gene Arnold represented Nash County in the state House from 1994 until 2002. He was the first Republican to do so in 100 years.
“I rode in on Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America,” Arnold said. “That’s when the Republicans took control, 1993.”
For five terms in the House and all his other public service, Arnold recently was awarded the Long Leaf Pine, the most prestigious award conferred by the governor. The Pine is awarded to people for exemplary service to the state above and beyond the call of duty, making a significant impact and strengthening North Carolina — the state’s highest honor of recognition.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:
John Kay, L. “Arnold awarded state accolade.” Rocky Mount Telegram. 8/19/18.
National News
Education Secretary Considers Using Federal Funds to Arm Schools
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos this month at the White House. Photo Credit: Tom Brenner, The New York Times.
The Education Department is considering whether to allow states to use federal funding to purchase guns for educators, according to multiple people with knowledge of the plan.
Such a move appears to be unprecedented, reversing a longstanding position taken by the federal government that it should not pay to outfit schools with weapons. And it would also undermine efforts by Congress to restrict the use of federal funding on guns. As recently as March, Congress passed a school safety bill that allocated $50 million a year to local school districts, but expressly prohibited the use of the money for firearms.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:
New Education Research? A Good Chance It’s from North Carolina
Photo Credit: Creative Commons, Boston Public Library.
Barbeque. Basketball rivalries. The Blue Ridge Mountains.
Education research? It’s something else North Carolina is known for, at least among a subset of social scientists.
“North Carolina has really done something special,” says Amy Ellen Schwartz, a professor and the editor of Education Finance and Policy, an academic journal.
“If you look over the last 20 years and focus on the highest quality work, it’s disproportionately work that comes from North Carolina data,” says Dan Goldhaber, an education professor at the University of Washington at Bothell.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:
Barnum, M. “New education research? A good chance it’s from North Carolina.” Chalkbeat. 8/20/18.
Do States Weaken Their Standards By ‘Un-Adopting’ the Common Core? These Reviewers Think So.
Photo Credit: Viktoria Goda, Pexels.
The English/language arts and math standards in most states that “un-adopted” or made changes to the Common Core State Standards are, in the end, “substantially weaker,” according to a new report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. These states would have served students better by simply adopting the common core whole, the report says.
“When states tried to quote ‘revise’ the standards it was a pretty fraught and perilous activity in that the changes they made did more harm than good,” Amber Northern, senior vice president for research at Fordham Institute, said in an interview. “If you have the right expertise in place, it’s not that you can’t develop strong, or potentially even better, standards. But it’s the exception to the norm.”
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:
Opportunities
Schools That Lead: Networked Improvement Communities in NC
Schools That Lead, in partnership with the NC General Assembly and the NC Department of Public Instruction, is excited to announce it will launch its North Carolina Networked Improvement Communities this fall for traditional public and charter schools seeking to improve learning outcomes for their students.
Over the last four years, we have partnered with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to grow practitioners’ capacity to use improvement science. In our work, principals and teachers learn to use improvement science to articulate their theories and assumptions, select change ideas and measure impact over time as they work to solve a common problem.
Thus, Schools That Lead will convene and lead K-12 networked improvement communities for teachers and principals in up to 60 North Carolina public schools to address problems of practice using improvement science. Schools That Lead will work with networks of up to 20 elementary schools, 20 middle schools and 20 high schools to solve the following problems:
- High schools: Increasing on-time graduation rates;
- Middle schools: Reducing 9th-grade retentions; and
- Elementary schools: Reducing the number of students with early warning indicators in course failures, absences and discipline.
DEADLINE AND SELECTION
- Proposals are due September 5, 2018.
- Schools will be selected by lottery and notified of selection by September 14, 2018.The lottery will be weighted in favor of schools with NC Report Card grades of C, D, and F.
- The first convening of selected schools will be held in Raleigh on Wednesday, September 26, 2018.
Access the RFP here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfTyy773dg5VcKgL7fVIbFW91Yiak51ZiOcCaWQ_iH4ydyoVA/viewform
The RFP should be completed by the school principal and should take no more than 30 minutes. For questions please email: [email protected]
Kenan Fellows Program for Teacher Leadership Seeks a Program Manager
The Kenan Fellows Program for Teacher Leadership (KFP) is searching for a Program Manager who will report to the KFP Associate Director of Program Operations and work closely with her/him to manage all aspects of program operations including teacher recruitment, internship oversight, professional development, and project design/implementation.
This individual is a key contact for Fellows and their STEM mentors, as well as school district personnel. At least three years of K-12 teaching experience required; experience leading teacher professional development is desirable. Bachelor’s degree in education or other relevant field required. Master’s degree preferred.Women in Educational Leadership Symposium
Registration is open for the third annual Women in Educational Leadership Symposium (WIELS). The purpose of WIELS is to bring women together to share, learn, and grow in leadership. This conference aims to provide personalized learning and mentoring opportunities for those who aspire to become or currently serve as educational leaders.
The symposium will be held October 5 through October 6, 2018 at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. This year’s conference theme is Advancing the Leader Within: Building Capacity.
Registration for the conference is online at https://wiels.appstate.edu/about-us/registration. Additional information can be found at https://wiels.appstate.edu/.
Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Awards for Science and Mathematics Teachers
The Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Science and Math Teachers (CASMT) application is now available online. The Career Award for Science and Mathematics Teachers is a five-year award available to outstanding science and/or mathematics teachers in the North Carolina public primary and secondary schools. The purpose of this award is to recognize teachers who have demonstrated solid knowledge of science and/or mathematics content and have outstanding performance records in educating children. The deadline for submission is September 24th, 2018. For more information or to access the application, visit https://www.bwfund.org/grant-programs/science-education/career-awards-science-and-mathematics-teachers.
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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Friday Report – August 24, 2018
This week in #nced: Charlotte's Boldest Bid to Undo School Segregation Is About to Become Reality; School Lunch Programs Becoming More Essential for North Carolina Families
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