Raleigh Passes The Buck, Not The Test

Researchers studying voucher systems in communities like Cleveland and Milwaukee where they have been in place for years, have found no significant academic improvement between students using a voucher paid with tax dollars to attend private schools and their public school counterparts. So if vouchers don't fix academic problems why are so many in Raleigh pushing so hard for them? Because it passes the buck.

Senate Budget Proposal Fails Our Students

The state Senate approved its budget proposal this week and as expected it offers nearly no support for education.

The budget, approved along party lines in the Republican-held Senate, falls about $135 million short of what's needed to keep current standards. Standards, we remind you, that were already drastically lowered during the Great Recession by about $1 billion.

Here's a quick breakdown of the damage the Senate budget would do:

Raleigh Might Fail Our Children But We Shouldn't

Guilford Education Alliance takes its responsibility as the county's leading non-partisan, education advocacy organization seriously and advocates only for those things that are proven to be in the best interest of our public school children. On May 11 the county board of education approved its 2013-2014 budget, including a request for $13.6 more in local funding from Guilford County. We urge the Guilford County Board of Commissioners and citizens to do all they can to honor this request.

For several years now, while the state legislature cut millions from our schools and other county's cut their own local education funding, Guilford County Commissioners held their contribution to our local schools steady. Guilford Education Alliance applauds our county commissioners their strength and courage during those dark economic times.

The Education Alliance, like the school board, fears that our state legislators will fail again this year to justly support our schools. But we are optimistic that our local elected officials can do better.

Bills To Watch

We've written about the numerous legislative proposals being considered in the North Carolina General Assembly and how they could devastate public education. We thought it might be helpful to create a few lists of those bills, what they could mean for public education in our state and where each is in the process of becoming law.

Hold The Line No More

Over the past five years, Guilford Education Alliance has applauded the Board of County Commissioners for maintaining local funding to Guilford County Schools. Our county commissioners did so while their counterparts in other counties, particularly in sister urban districts, cut into the local funding of their schools.

And remember, these cuts were being made at a time when the state cut millions from education funding as well.

Guilford Education Alliance applauds the Guilford County Board of Education, Superintendent Maurice “Mo” Green and his staff as well. Because of their leadership our schools maintained stability and earned amazing growth in academic achievement, in spite of the almost $75 million in state funding the school district lost in cuts and redirections since 2009.

During these incredibly lean years Guilford County Schools still managed to kick off new initiatives as outlined in the 2013 Strategic Plan, such as Character Education and Service Learning, a program that has received national recognition; having traditional high schools lead those across the state in graduation rates and Middle College/Early College high schools with 100 percent graduation rates; launching and building new schools; maintaining support for arts/music education and initiating the African American male initiative; and lifting up teachers and principals to North Carolina recognition levels.

We must not let this growth and achievement be threatened by continued cuts. We must begin to restore the impact the cuts have made such as adding 60+ more teachers for our students, and beginning to restore class size to previous levels.

Added to the pressures of having fewer resources for academic programs have been the increasing costs of line items such as utilities and retirement benefits and health care coverage for employees. And these are just the expenses to keep the doors open. Enrollment continues to increase in Guilford County Schools while Charter Schools siphon funding away from our public schools.

Guilford Education Alliance regards the Annual Budget for our schools as the “meat and potatoes,” the central ingredients for our district’s success. Funding public education is necessary to ensure each child gets the instruction and attention he/she needs to be fully prepared for success in life.

Guilford Education Alliance agrees that IT'S TIME for our community to STEP UP and support our children, parents and teachers with action. Guilford Education Alliance is calling on our county commissioners and school board to be visionaries once more and approve Superintendent Green's request for appropriate funding of Guilford County Schools.

The school board is expected to adopt a budget during its May 14 meeting, including a request for local funding from the county. A public hearing on the proposed county budget, including the school board's request, has not been scheduled yet.

Voucher Advocates Want Public Dollars For Private Schools

House Bill 944, which would create a school voucher program in North Carolina, looks set to sail through the House and on to the Senate. Supporters, which include Rep. Marcus Brandon (D) of High Point, are calling it “Opportunity Scholarships” but the only opportunity that's being offered is for our tax dollars to pay for private schools. Thanks, but no thanks.

Brandon joined Darrell Allison, president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, and others last week at a school voucher rally held at War Memorial Auditorium. Parents and students from religiously affiliated schools from across North Carolina were in the audience but voucher advocates seem to be targeting High Point residents in particular with their rhetoric, including a recent guest column in the High Point Enterprise written by Allison.  

In the column, which you can read here, Allison makes the same tired arguments we've heard for decades. “Private schools will save the day! Just don't ask how,” is a good summary of the column.

For example, Allison uses misleading data to make it appear low-income students are performing worse than they actually are in Guilford County public schools. Allison cites a five-year average for low-income student performance on end-of-grade tests. That makes it appear that less than half of those students pass their EOGs.

The numbers Allison doesn't cite are 2012 EOG scores, which show across the board improvement for low-income students, with 63 percent of students passing. And he certainly doesn't talk about the academic growth that those students experienced.

Every year many of our students, low-income and otherwise, begin school well behind their peers academically. And each year trained, licensed, professional public school teachers begin their work with students where they are and have success moving them forward. Growth is charted and measured. Learning happens. Not all of those students will catch up to their peers within the school year but that's an argument for funding more time with those teachers, not sending them to a private school with almost no oversight or mandates.

Also, note that Allison doesn't explain how private schools manage better results for low-income students. Maybe he left that out because the data shows they don't. In fact, studies have found students do worse than they did in their public schools.

What a voucher system will do is pull money away from public schools, giving it to private schools, some of which will no doubt pop up overnight. Those private schools will then spend our tax money with little to no oversight, teaching whatever they like. Simply put, vouchers will create chaos, an unaccountable mess and leave children behind. Our children deserve better than that.

Public Schools Offer Flexibility, Choice

By Margaret Arbuckle

Executive Director, Guilford Education Alliance

Free public education that is available to all students is one of the magnificent civil rights of our country. Our society’s commitment to provide this opportunity, built on principles of democracy and what is best for the common good, is the foundation for our economic prosperity and our civil society.

For generations, education was provided through a standardized curriculum that all were expected to achieve. But thankfully, throughout the decades, public education has evolved to meet the needs of individual students and the larger needs of our society as we have moved from agrarian to manufacturing to a knowledge-based economy, and as our citizens have become more diverse.