LATEST FULL EPISODES

Topic:  Teacher Rally Recap and Exploring the House BudgetThe school year may be nearing an end, but education policymaking is heating up in Raleigh. For the second year in a row, thousands of teachers marched and rallied outside the General Assembly. At the very same...

Topic:  How Do We Keep Our Children Safe? The rate of teen suicide in North Carolina has doubled in the last 10 years. Self-harm among 10- to 14-year-old girls in the U.S. has nearly tripled since 2009. Nearly one in seven U.S. children and adolescents has a mental...

Topic: NC Teachers Marching Again On May 16th last year, nearly 20,000 North Carolina teachers descended on Raleigh for a march and rally outside the NC General Assembly asking for more support for public schools and respect for the teaching profession. Teachers are...

Topic:  Expanding NC’s Teacher PipelineOur state’s public schools are facing critical teacher shortages and longer term teaching vacancies. At the same time, enrollment in the state’s teacher preparation programs continue to lag. In response, state leaders have been...

Topic: Talking Testing with Teacher LegislatorsThere appears to be a growing bipartisan consensus that we’re over-testing our state’s public school students. There’s also increasing scrutiny over how those standardized tests are being used to assign A-F letter grades...

Topic: One-on-One with NC Governor Roy CooperTwo years ago, Roy Cooper was elected Governor of North Carolina as a champion for teachers and public schools. He’s just unveiled his proposed state budget to a more balanced General Assembly than the Republican...

Topic: Newsmakers This week on Education Matters we welcome two educators who are making news. First up is Leigh Kokenes. She’s a School Psychologist in the Wake County Public Schools System and was recently named the National School Psychologist of the Year. We’ll...

Topic: One-On-One with State Superintendent Mark Johnson It’s been more than two years since Mark Johnson was elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction. He’s just unveiled a new initiative that aims to make North Carolina the best place to learn and teach by...

Topic: Documenting Historically Segregated Black SchoolsThe history of school desegregation includes many important stories of courageous African American families and their children who were the first to attend previously whites-only schools. But there’s another...

Topic: Inequity in School FundingA study released this week by the Public School Forum of NC shows a growing gap in public school funding between the highest and lowest-wealth counties in the state. These funding disparities have a real impact on education, including...

Topic: Exploring Rural-Urban North CarolinaAccording to the Institute for Emerging Issues at NC State, people in North Carolina are feeling more disconnected than ever and they want to do something about it. So IEI launched a three-year initiative called ReCONNECT NC...

Topic: Newsmaker ConversationsThe State Treasurer of North Carolina has broad responsibilities over the finances of the state that have big implications for public education including state employee retirement and pension plans, the State Health Plan and how the state...