About: Terry Stoops

In response to a new Annie E. Casey Foundation report, The KIDS COUNT Data Book, News & Observer editors write, These findings, released this week and reported by WRAL, should disturb all North Carolinians. The report should bother the state’s leaders, Gov. Pat McCrory and those who run the General Assembly. And it must prompt some fact-findingContinue Reading

Of the nearly 2,300 teacher assistants employed in Wake County, WRAL just happened to interview Wake teacher assistant Josette Beller, mother of NCAE activist and Wake County elementary school teacher Kristin Beller (pictured below).  Both work at Millbrook Magnet Elementary School. This is just another reason why it is difficult to take WRAL’s coverage ofContinue Reading

According to Education Week, cursive is ready for a comeback.  The article offers an instructive anecdote. When an undergraduate in her university’s [University of Illinois] Rare Book and Manuscript Library asked for help with a manuscript she was reading, library director Valerie Hotchkiss assumed it was something difficult. An obscure Latin text, perhaps, or a letterContinue Reading

We’ve heard countless reports of teachers who flee North Carolina public schools for higher pay. But some of these teachers return to North Carolina after finding that public schools in their destination states were less than ideal.  These “boomerang” teachers rarely receive the kind of attention that their departing counterparts do, but they have anContinue Reading

The N.C. Department of Public Instruction (DPI) revealed that the state spent at least $66 million on the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. For the past few years, Lt. Governor Dan Forest and others asked DPI to provide an estimate of taxpayer money used for Common Core implementation.  They never received it.  NowContinue Reading

Last week, Governor McCrory (R?) appointed 22 members to the State Textbook Commission.  The commission evaluates and recommends textbooks to be used in North Carolina’s public schools, so it is a fairly important job. Just for the heck of it, I checked N.C. State Board of Elections records to determine the voter registration of eachContinue Reading

For more information on this ranking and the issue of educational productivity, read this week’s newsletter, “The most and least productive school districts in NC.” Note: The lower the ROI score, the higher the productivity.  For example, districts that scored a “1″ had the highest achievement and lowest spending.  Districts that earned a “6″ hadContinue Reading

That is the question posed by Twitter user J. Wesley Fricks III. The photo posted on his Twitter feed (and below) speaks volumes. Curiously, neither the publisher nor the editors of the News & Observer have commented on their publication’s use of plastic bags.  Letters to the editor asking them to clarify their position, suchContinue Reading