Friday Report – May 12, 2017

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Excerpt from:
Hinchcliffe, K. and Mims, B. “NC ranks 35th in nation for teacher pay; 43rd in per-pupil spending.” WRAL. 5/10/17.

On Teacher Appreciation Day, Gov. Roy Cooper told teachers at Combs Elementary School in Raleigh that public education is one of his top priorities.

Raising teacher salaries and school budget for classroom supplies are important measures in his proposed budget, Cooper said.

“I wish I could thank every teacher all over North Carolina personally, but what we’ll do is try to get a good budget to show them how much we appreciate them,” Cooper said. “I think North Carolinians want to invest in public education. They know how important it is, so we’ve got our work cut out for us as we enter into the budget negotiations.”

Under Cooper’s proposed budget, public school teachers would receive 10 percent raises on average over two years, along with $150 stipends to purchase classroom supplies.

During the 2015-16 school year, the average teacher salary in the Wake County school system was $50,803, according to the school system’s annual financial report.

Cooper’s appearance Tuesday was prompted by a letter his office received from Sarah Edgar, a first-grade student at Combs who invited him to visit the school. Sarah, 7, included a picture of a rainforest and said she was “in shock” when her teachers told her Cooper was coming.

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To read about Governor Cooper’s budget proposal for funding school personnel and a district-by-district breakdown of funding, view the Governor’s press release here.

Excerpt from:

Iszler, M. “Governor highlights teacher raises, school supply stipend on Teacher Appreciation Day.” The News & Observer. 5/9/17.

North Carolina’s foster kids are not all right. More than 12,000 children are wards of the state — up about 25 percent over the past five years, Sen. Tamara Barringer, R-Wake, told Carolina Journal.

No one can explain the spike, and state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are working toward an answer. Causes for foster placement include population growth, increases in drug addiction, physical abuse, and mental health issues, said Jamaica Pfister, triangle area director of the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina.

Barringer, a foster parent for more than a decade, adopted three children from within the system. “After I’ve seen what I’ve seen, I cannot stay silent,” she said. She has seen 3- and 5-year-old kids with broken bones. Children who were traumatized after they were locked in dark closets. Some who were abandoned, and some who were sexually abused.

Social services should be priority, but North Carolina’s system is failing, said Barringer, who last month helped introduce bicameral legislation that could fix multiple problems.

The Family/Child Protection Accountability Act, Senate Bill 594, is designed to make social services more efficient and accountable. A 2017 legislative study on Homeless Youth, Foster Care, and Dependency was a catalyst for the bill, said Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, a primary sponsor of the House version, House Bill 608.

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Excerpt from:

Travis, K. “Plight of foster children taking center stage in legislature.” The Carolina Journal. 5/8/17.

Hundreds of students attending private schools using taxpayer money, along with their counterparts in public schools, volunteered to take an extra test this spring as part of a project that aims to show how the groups compare academically.

Researchers at N.C. State University are running the project that will have students in public and private schools take a short-form version of a well-known standardized exam called the Iowa Test.

The state voucher program is in its third year, but there hasn’t been a way to know whether students who use the money for private school are doing better, worse or the same compared to public school students.

Students attending private schools do not take the same state standardized tests required in public schools. Private schools that take vouchers must give students a standardized test each year whose results can be compared to test-takers nationally, but the schools can choose which test they give. Results are not publicly reported unless the school has more than 25 students who use vouchers, called Opportunity Scholarships.

“We don’t have a common measure to compare against the public school students,” said Trip Stallings, director of policy research at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation. Stallings is part of the research team doing the study.

The state in 2014 began paying private-school tuition of up to $4,200 a year for students who leave public schools and whose families meet income guidelines.

The law setting up the program required that the office that runs it, the State Education Assistance Authority, hire an independent research organization to examine learning gains and losses among scholarship students and effects on public school performance. The N.C. State researchers are doing the study on behalf of the assistance authority.

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Excerpt from:

Bonner, L. “Comparing NC voucher students to public school pupils.” The News & Observer. 5/8/17.

State Board of Education Chairman Bill Cobey (pictured left) would like to see “some tweaks in the legislation” before the board chooses which low-performing schools will be included in the state’s new Achievement School District, he told WRAL News in an interview last week.

The new district will take five struggling public elementary schools in the state and put them under new management. Outside entities, such as charter school operators, will take control of the schools and supervise, manage and operate them with the goal of improving their performance.

The state board has chosen a superintendent to lead the new district and help choose which five schools will be included. But, so far, they have not put together a list of which schools could be considered.

“We’ve got some of our legislative people working on the General Assembly (to) make some tweaks in the legislation before we make a list,” Cobey said. He would like the law to expand the number of schools that can be considered. “I don’t know what that looks like, but you don’t want to narrow it,” Cobey said.

The current law states that for a school to be considered, it must meet certain qualifications, such as having a school performance score in the lowest 5 to 10 percent of all schools in the past year and not exceeding or meeting growth on test scores in at least one of the past three years.

While Cobey waits to see if lawmakers will make changes, he estimates it could be two or three months before the state education department puts together a list of possible schools to consider. The new Achievement School District will likely not be up and running until the 2018-19 school year, a year later than some had hoped.

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Excerpt from:
Hinchcliffe, K. “State board chairman calls for changes to Achievement School District law.” WRAL. 5/8/17.

Excerpt from:
NCDPI. “Dr. Maria Pitre-Martin Named Deputy State Superintendent.” 5/8/17.

On National Teacher Day, the Kenan Fellows Program for Teacher Leadership was pleased to announce its 2017–18 fellowship awards for K–12 educators.

Twenty-eight teachers from across North Carolina have been selected from a pool of more than 125 highly qualified applicants. We anticipate awarding an additional fellowship later this spring dependent on funding.

The 2017–18 Kenan Fellows will spend at least three weeks of their summer interning with local experts in agriculture, telecommunications, nanotechnology, cell research, energy, computing and other STEM fields. Traditionally, teachers go from earning a college degree straight to the classroom and do not spend time working in business or industry. The Kenan Fellows Program internship gives educators the practical knowledge and application to better prepare students for college and careers by showing them how STEM at work is relevant to STEM in school.

“Studies show that teachers are the most important in-school factor contributing to student achievement. Innovative and informed educators can provide tools to help students understand how STEM disciplines are applied in local businesses, industries, and research settings,” said Dr. Elaine Franklin, director of the Kenan Fellows Program. “Through our program, teachers implement hands-on, student-focused tools to prepare students to become productive and informed citizens.”

As part of the award, Kenan Fellows receive a $5,000 stipend and participate in 80 hours of professional development focused on project-based learning, digital learning and leadership development. Educators who complete the year-long program remain in the classroom while growing professionally as part of a statewide network of teacher leaders. Today, an elite network of more than 400 Kenan Fellows are working to improve STEM education in North Carolina and beyond.

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Excerpt from:

Solano, A. “NC Teachers From Across the State Awarded Prestigious Kenan Fellowships.” Kenan Fellows Press Release. 5/9/17.

President Donald Trump and his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, have made local control a major focus of their statements on K-12. And Trump underscored that priority in his recent executive order calling on DeVos to take a hard look at where the federal government has overreached on K-12 education.

The order directs DeVos to review, tweak, and even repeal regulations and guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Education recently, as well as identify places where the federal government has overstepped its legal authority.

Recently, “too many in Washington have advanced top-down mandates that take away autonomy and limit the options available to educators, administrators, and parents,” said Rob Goad, a senior Education Department aide, on a call with reporters last month. The executive order puts “an end to this overreach, ensuring that states and localities are free to make educational decisions,” he added.

In response to the executive order, a task force at the department, led by Robert Eitel, a senior adviser to the secretary, will look at all the K-12 regulations put out by prior administrations and decide which step on local control, Goad said. After 300 days, the department is supposed to release a report on its findings.

The Public School Forum is now 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 at https://www.ncforum.org/education-policy-fellowship-program/.

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 more information visit www.nccat.org.

Some upcoming programs include:

14458 • ACHIEVING AGAINST THE ODDS: FOCUS ON READING

September 18–21: Cullowhee

Today’s diverse students enter school eager to become successful in classrooms originally designed for culturally homogeneous populations and are expected to learn from teachers who are often not from the same cultural, ethnic/race or social-class. Unsurprisingly, student performance in reading and other subjects is often low while student dropout and teacher burnout rates are high. This program guides participants to explore and document their experiences in motivating at-risk students to become effective readers. In addition to sharing successful strategies for improving reading skills and producing a written narrative, participants will use several technology applications to capture their stories about students who have achieved against the odds and become motivated and skilled readers who excel academically.

14467 • MAKING MATH MEANINGFUL: ENGAGING WITH MATH THROUGH MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES

October 9–12: Cullowhee

Designed for grades K–6 teachers.

Wondering how to engage your students as they explore and develop math understanding and mastery? You can make math meaningful for your students. Come and refresh your understanding of Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) as you engage in activities designed to help connect the ways your students are “smart” to the NC Math Standards. Explore and develop learning strategies to support math mastery as we look at planning for and assessing math standards for your grade level. With ideas for the self-smart and the people-smart, the naturalist, musical, verbal, kinesthetic and visual learners, you’ll leave ready to start your year the MI way! This program is presented by A+ Schools of North Carolina.

14485 • READING, WRITING, AND READY BY THIRD GRADE: EARLY GRADES LITERACY INSTRUCTION

November 13–16: Ocracoke

Literacy instruction is as difficult as it is essential. This program will provide early grades teachers with a complement of research-based tools and strategies to help answer some of their more burning questions: How do I teach close reading to students who don’t yet know the alphabet? What level of writing can I attain from children who are still learning to spell? How do I simultaneously provide enrichment for advanced readers and remediation for delayed readers? How can I integrate reading and writing instruction into all other subject areas? Finally, what does this instruction look like in the classroom and how are student engagement and learning measured in this process?

14489 • GOOGLE TOOLS IN SCHOOLS

December 4–7: Ocracoke

Whether or not your school or district has adopted a Google Chromebook environment, if your LEA infrastructure allows for the use of Google Tools and/or Apps, the “Googlesphere” can be an immense help. It can aid in engaging students, keeping in touch with parents, automating feedback and assessment, sharing documents, and more. Hone your skills with the Google Chrome Browser, with Google Apps, with Android Apps, and with Chrome OS so that you can engage your students using freely available tools on almost any platform.

The second conference of the Women in Educational Leadership Symposium (WIELS) will be held at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina on September 22 through September 24, 2017. The purpose of WIELS is to bring women together to share, learn, and grow in leadership. Women who are interested in learning from others and those who are willing to share skills and expertise are urged to attend. This conference aims to provide personalized learning and mentoring opportunities for those who aspire to become or currently serve as educational leaders. The conference theme is Advancing the Leader Within: Building Capacity. Attendees are urged to submit proposals on salient issues, skills, and experiences affecting women leaders.

Conference proposals are due by May 31, 2017. Visit https://wiels.appstate.edu/about-us/call-proposals to submit a proposal.