Public School Forum

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by Forum Admin

The Friday Report

August 12, 2016

Forum News

Public School Forum of NC to Launch New Weekly TV Program Education Matters on WRAL-TV

 

The Public School Forum of North Carolina is launching a new weekly television program beginning October 2, 2016 on WRAL-TV, the NBC affiliate in the Raleigh-Durham/Fayetteville market. The program, Education Matters, aims to provide the public with real facts about the state of public education in North Carolina. The weekly television show will explore everything from the history of public education to the impact of legislation and policy decisions on our public schools.
Education Matters will premiere Sunday, October 2nd at 11:30 AM on WRAL-TV. The program will move to its permanent time slot, Saturdays at 7:30 PM, beginning November 26, 2016, where it will follow established WRAL-TV franchise On the Record with David Crabtree. The program will also be available online on https://www.wral.com/ and https://www.ncforum.org/. The program will be hosted by Keith Poston, President & Executive Director of the Public School Forum of North Carolina
“With this show we want to get away from a traditional he said/she said format, having two pundits on either side of an issue highlighting opposing extremes,” said Poston. “Education Matters will be an opportunity for viewers to hear directly from subject-matter experts and real front-line educators as they navigate everything from funding challenges, teacher recruitment, and the impact of poverty on student learning, to testing, academic standards, and the major racial and ethnic shifts in the student population.”
“One of our primary goals is to help the public understand how education policy plays out in our schools, and what kind of impact these policies are having on our students and teachers,” said Poston. “Education Matters will provide a window into the classroom that is often lacking from typical media coverage or political debates.”
Vice President and General Manager of WRAL-TV and FOX 50, Steven D. Hammel added, “The mission of Education Matters is critical to this community, this state, and as such, to our viewers.  We hope by airing Education Matters, the program will raise the level of discourse to help students all across the state of North Carolina.”
WRAL-TV is in the Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville Designated Market Area (DMA), the 25th largest DMA in the nation and the 2nd largest DMA in North Carolina. Raleigh-Durham is home to over 2.7 million residents and more than 1.1 million TV households.

In This Issue

Public School Forum of NC to Launch New Weekly TV Program Education Matters on WRAL-TV

Teachers Spend Hundreds of Their Own Money on Supplies

Kenan Fellows Program’s Scholarly Journal for Teacher Leaders

Judge Says Wake Must Use Old School Board, County Commissioner Election Maps

Forsyth County Bonds Pass Final Vote for November Ballot

Communities in Schools to Help Students in their Quest to Graduate with $1.25 Million from AT&T

As Nation’s Students Become More Diverse, Teaching Corps Hasn’t Kept Pace

The Teacher Pay Gap is Wider Than Ever

The Best Schools in the World Do This. Why Don’t We?

Public School Forum Seeking Fall 2016 Interns

SECU Appalachian Partnership Scholarship

RFP for Principal Preparation Programs

Burroughs Wellcome Fund Accepting Applications for Career Awards for Science & Math Teachers

Public School Forum Programs

State News

Teachers Spend Hundreds of Their Own Money on Supplies

Photo Credit: Julie Ball, The Asheville Citizen-Times

Armed with those supply lists that include things like freezer bags and hand sanitizer, parents will fill area stores as their children prepare to head back to school.
But teachers are hitting the stores, too. And many will spend hundreds of dollars of their own money to make sure their students have what they need in the classroom in the coming year.
“I would say, especially in the district I work in, teachers spend a good chunk of money on supplies for their students,” said Tiffany Wooten, who teaches English at Erwin High School.
Wooten and her husband are both teachers and she estimates they’ll spend at least $500 on school supplies. For beginning teachers who haven’t accumulated supplies, the amount is even more, she said.
Counselors and administrative staff help where they can, but budgets are tight, and the state provides less money than it once did for instructional supplies.
In 2007-08, the state allocated just over $83 million for classroom materials, instructional supplies and equipment, according to numbers from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. During the last school year, the state allocated around $44.3 million.
That reduction is reflected in local school district budgets.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:

Kenan Fellows Program’s Scholarly Journal for Teacher Leaders

The Kenan Fellows Program recently released the inaugural edition of their first scholarly journal, the Journal of Interdisciplinary Teacher Leadership.
The Journal of Interdisciplinary Teacher Leadership (JoITL) is a peer-reviewed publication of the Kenan Fellows Program for Teacher Leadership featuring original work on educational topics from research to pedagogy to policy and beyond. It is grounded in the belief that education benefits from diversity of thought and the crossing of disciplinary boundaries. With this in mind, JoITL is designed to engage the scholarship of a wide cross-section of education professionals and provide a space for sharing both research and practice. Educators who seek an intellectual community with whom to share work, explore ideas, and advance teaching and learning are encouraged to become part of the JoITL community.
JoITL was founded in response to a group of Teacher Leaders (Kenan Fellowship awardees) who were seeking a new venue for publishing academic work. They envisioned a journal that would hold to high standards, reflect multiple perspectives, and appeal to the kind of educators who choose to lead the profession from the classroom rather than from administrative positions. They also wanted a journal that would be open to multiple types of articles including, but not limited to, literature reviews, research articles, well-constructed essays, and book reviews.
The five articles in this inaugural edition well reflect the vision of diversity and inclusion in which JoITL is grounded. Among the authors are seasoned K-12 teachers, doctoral candidates, and professors from colleges of education, textiles, and engineering. Although no theme was identified in the call for submissions, several arise from the five articles. The most prominent being one of education’s classic dichotomies — the tension between experience and reflection. 
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:

Judge Says Wake Must Use Old School Board, County Commissioner Election Maps

From left, James Merrill, Caroline Sullivan, Christine Kushner,  James West and Tom Benton, listen

during a joint meeting between the Wake Co. Commissioners and the Wake Co. School Board held

at PNC Arena in Raleigh on Jan. 26, 2015. Photo Credit: Chris Seward, The News & Observer.

Wake County voters will likely elect county commissioners and school board members in November using district lines that were in place for most elections since 2011 – not the lines introduced by state lawmakers that were ruled unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge James C. Dever III on Tuesday instructed the Wake County Board of Elections to put three county commissioner seats and all nine school board seats on the ballot this fall.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on July 1 ruled the district lines created by the General Assembly violated equal representation – or “one person, one vote” principles in the U.S. Constitution – and gave unfair advantages to voters in suburban districts.
The court later rejected a request to reconsider the ruling, putting the onus back on Dever to tell state lawmakers and elections officials whether there will be a Nov. 8 election and which maps will be used.
The Wake elections board told Dever on Monday that apart from moving forward with the unconstitutional maps, using the old maps would be the most feasible option.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:

Forsyth County Bonds Pass Final Vote for November Ballot

It’s official: Forsyth County will hold a $430 million bond referendum this fall on building projects for schools and parks.
A final public hearing on the issue was held Monday before the County Board of Commissioners — the last chance for teachers, taxpayers and other interested parties to speak for or against the proposed bonds and the tax increase that comes with them before commissioners made a final decision to put them on the November ballot.
Speakers on both sides used nearly all of the 15 minutes allotted to each, all of them addressing the $350 million proposed for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools that makes up the bulk of the bonds.
“When you vote for a bond, you vote for the community,” said Peggy Dickey, principal of Lowrance Middle School. “When you spend money for schools … it tells the community you’re invested in the future.” Lowrance is one of the top priorities of the school bonds. It’s likely to be among the schools built, in a joint project with Paisley IB Magnet School.
Despite impassioned defenses from principals, school board members and even Commissioner Everette Witherspoon, there were many who say they still have concerns about the tax burden that comes with $430 million in bonds. Should all three bonds pass, county models predict a 3.6-cent increase in the tax rate in 2018 and another 3.8-cent increase in 2022.
To read the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:

Communities in Schools to Help Students in their Quest to Graduate with $1.25 Million from AT&T

Two of North Carolina’s Communities In Schools (CIS) organizations have been selected to receive $1.25 million from AT&T, reflecting the success of CIS in supporting and motivating underserved students to stay in school and prepare for their next step in life.
CIS of North Carolina and CIS of Wilkes County are two of only 18 recipients nationwide that will share in $10 million from AT&T through the Aspire Connect to Success Competition. Recipient organizations deliver integrated student supports, focus on college or career preparation, and/or provide mentoring or peer-to-peer supports to help underserved students graduate.
CIS of North Carolina will receive $750,000 to support the Powering the Future program, which serves students in grades 9 – 12, in six rural high schools in Conway, Littleton, Oxford, Warrenton, Weldon, and Windsor, where graduation rates are far below the state average and fewer than 25% of students are grade-level-proficient.
CIS of Wilkes County will receive $500,000 to expand the Increasing Intentionality Initiative, which serves 5,516 students in grades 9 – 12, into seven high-poverty, rural high schools in North Wilkesboro and Taylorsville. Of the more than 5,500 students in grades 9-12 who will be served by this expansion, more than 1,000 will receive individualized, case-managed services.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.

National News

As Nation’s Students Become More Diverse, Teaching Corps Hasn’t Kept Pace

In 2015, slightly more than half of the nation’s children younger than 1 were non-white, U.S. Census Bureau data indicate.
It’s just the latest data point marking a demographic transition, the shift from a majority white nation to one with no majority racial or ethnic group that’s also playing out in the nation’s K-12 classrooms.
At this point, the data show that it’s probably a misnomer to refer to non-white students as minorities. Two years ago, the number of Latino, African-American, and Asian students in public schools surpassed the number of non-Hispanic whites.
But while students in the nation’s classrooms are increasingly more diverse, the people educating them aren’t. In a nation where nearly half of all children under five right now are non-white, and no racial or ethnic group will constitute a true majority in the United States by 2055, according to an analysis of Census data from the Pew Research Center, the teaching corps in K-12 classrooms remains overwhelmingly white.
A 2013 analysis by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education found that more than 80 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in education awarded in 2009-10 were to non-Hispanic white students. The study, which relied on National Center for Education Statistics data, found that less than 20 percent of the U.S. teaching corps is non-white.
The shortage is especially acute among non-white males. Education Week has written about the shortage of black male teachers and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education study referenced above found that Hispanic teachers are woefully underrepresented in classrooms.
A June report from the Teacher Project at Columbia Journalism School examined how the shortage of Hispanic teachers is affecting the Boston school system.
The Pew analysis found that “racial and ethnic minorities” have accounted for much of the nation’s population growth in recent decades.
To continue reading the complete article, click here.

Excerpt from:

The Teacher Pay Gap is Wider Than Ever

In The teacher pay gap is wider than ever, Economic Policy Institute (EPI) President Lawrence Mishel and UC Berkeley economist and EPI research associate Sylvia Allegretto find that teacher’s wages and compensation continue to fall relative to comparable workers. When adjusted for education, experience, and demographic factors, teachers earned 1.8 percent less than other workers in 1994, while in 2015 the teacher wage penalty had grown to 17 percent.
Although teachers on average enjoy better benefits packages than similar workers, Mishel and Allegretto find that benefits only mitigate part of the wage gap. Including benefits, teachers are still left with a record-high 11.1 percent compensation gap compared to similar workers.
“In order to recruit and retain talented teachers, school districts should be paying them more than their peers,” said Mishel. “Instead, teachers face low wages, high levels of student debt, and increasing demands on the job. Eliminating the teacher pay penalty is crucial to building the teacher workforce we need.”
Collective bargaining does abate part of the wage gap. Teachers benefiting from collective bargaining have a wage gap 6 percentage points less than teachers who are nonunion.
“Once again, unions prove their importance in protecting teachers from a much larger pay gap,” said Allegretto. “For women, especially, being a member of a teacher’s union can have a major impact on earnings.”
The growing wage penalty for teachers has contributed to an insufficient supply of teachers at every stage of the career ladder. A recent study showed that only 5 percent of college-bound students were interested in education. Moreover increased pressure from testing, state budget cuts, and demand for smaller class sizes has put strains on retaining sufficient mid-career teachers.
Other key findings include:
  • Since 1996, teacher pay has decreased $30 per week (from $1,222 to $1,092 in 2015.) In this same time period, college graduates’ average weekly wages have increased from $1,292 to $1,416 in 2015.
  • Experienced teachers have felt the erosion in pay more than entry-level teachers. In 1996, the most experienced teachers enjoyed a pay premium of +1.9 percent. In 2015, it had fallen to a pay penalty of -17.8 percent.
  • The wage penalty has grown remarkably among women. In 1960, female teachers earned 14.7 percent more than comparable female workers. However, in 2015, the authors find a -13.9 percent wage gap for female teachers.
  • The wage penalty for male teachers is much larger. The male teacher wage gap was -22.1 percent in 1979 and improved to 15.0 percent in the mid-1990s, but worsened in the late 1990s into the early 2000s. It stood at 24.5 percent in 2015.
To read the complete report, click here.
Reprinted from:

The Best Schools in the World Do This. Why Don’t We?

For a moment, let’s pretend.
That everything you know about America’s public education system — the bitter politics and arcane funding policies, the rules and countless reasons our schools work (or don’t) the way they do — is suddenly negotiable.
Pretend the obstacles to change have melted like butter on hot blacktop.
Now ask yourself: What could — and should — we do differently?
This question drove a bipartisan group of more than two-dozen state lawmakers and legislative staffers on an 18-month journey. Their mission: study some of the world’s top-performing school systems, including those in Finland, Hong Kong, Japan, Ontario, Poland, Shanghai, Singapore and Taiwan.
Earlier this week the group, part of the National Conference of State Legislatures, released its findings, titled No Time to Lose: How to Build a World-Class Education System State by State.
The report is full of takeaways. Here are three of the biggest:
1: More Help For The Youngest Learners
2: Teachers Need To Be Better
3: Fix Career And Technical Education (CTE)
To continue reading the complete article, click here.
Excerpt from:

Opportunities

Public School Forum Seeking Fall 2016 Interns

The Public School Forum is seeking undergraduate interns for the Fall 2016 semester. Applications are being accepted for a Education Policy & Research Intern, as well as a Communication & Development Intern.
Position descriptions and application details can be found here. Interested candidates should send a resume and cover letter to Lauren Bock at lbock@ncforum.org.

SECU Appalachian Partnership Scholarship

As the new school year begins, there will be many new teachers in the classroom. Twenty-nine of those new teachers were part of the first graduating class for the State Employees’ Credit Union (SECU) Appalachian Partnership Scholarship at Appalachian State University. 
Through a generous grant from the State Employees’ Credit Union, students enrolled in Appalachian’s elementary education, middle grades education or special education degree programs are eligible for the scholarship that will cover most of the tuition during their program. 
The SECU Appalachian Partnership Scholarship is designed to assist students who are completing their bachelor’s degree at one of Appalachian’s Distance Education off-campus sites in Burke, Caldwell, Catawba and Wilkes counties. This assistance comes in the form of both financial assistance – the scholarship – and programming assistance, such as career development workshops. The ultimate goal of the scholarship and program is to produce highly prepared teachers to teach in their home counties.
For the 2015-2016 academic year, 81 students received a SECU Appalachian Partnership Scholarship for a total of $109,700.
For more information on the SECU Appalachian Partnership Scholarship, contact Rebekah Saylors at saylorsrw@appstate.edu or click here to learn more.

RFP for Principal Preparation Programs

The North Carolina Alliance for School Leadership Development (NCASLD) is issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP) for principal preparation programs (PPP) as authorized by the State Education Assistance Authority (SEAA) in NC Session Law 2015-241, Section 11.9 and supplemented by House Bill 1030, ratified on July 1, 2016.
In 2015 the North Carolina General Assembly established a competitive grant program to “elevate educators in North Carolina public schools by transforming the preparation of principals across the State.” The goal of the program is to provide funds for the preparation and support of highly effective school principals in North Carolina. 
The North Carolina General Assembly has allocated $4,500,000 per fiscal year to award grants to selected recipients, designated as PPP Providers in the RFP. This is the second RFP issued under this allocation. Funds are committed for the 2016-2017 fiscal year. Funding for future years will be contingent upon continued appropriations from the North Carolina General Assembly. Final authority for making awards rests with SEAA.
NCASLD estimates that it will recommend to the SEAA 3-5 grant recipients, each receiving $750,000 to $1,000,000 per year for 2 years (contingent upon the continued availability of funds.)
RFP applications can be found at https://www.ncasld.org/principalpreparation.html. Proposals are due to the NCASLD office by 5:00 PM on August 26, 2016. Additional information can be obtained on the NCASLD website.

Burroughs Wellcome Fund Accepting Applications for Career Awards for Science & Math Teachers

The Burroughs Wellcome Fund is currently accepting applications for the Career Award for Science and Mathematics Teachers (CASMT). CASMT 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. This five-year award presents opportunities for professional development and collaboration with other master science and/or mathematics teachers who will help to ensure their success as teachers and their satisfaction with the field of teaching. Special consideration will be given to teachers working in hard-to-staff, economically deprived classrooms in North Carolina. The award also offers schools and school districts the opportunity to fully develop teachers as leaders in the field.

Career Awards for Science and Mathematics Teachers provide $175,000 over a period of five years ($35,000 per year) to eligible teachers in the North Carolina public school system.
The application deadline is September 25, 2016.

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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