Terry Stoops

According to Attendance Works, chronic absenteeism is on the rise, though data collection challenges remain.  The U.S. Department of Education defines chronic absenteeism as missing 15 or more days during a school year.  As one would expect, chronic absenteeism impedes learning. The Hamilton Project, a program within the Brookings…

This press release from Greene County Schools is a bit much. When in the right hands, great challenge can bring great gifts. As a high poverty district in North Carolina, Greene County Schools confronts funding and equity issues constantly. Yet, they have been fortunate to have leadership relentlessly committed…

WUNC profiles finance officers from a few North Carolina school districts.  They want the state to send them more money (naturally) and grant districts more budgetary flexibility.  The latter is one of the goals of the Joint Legislative Task Force on Education Finance Reform, which is considering ways…

On Tuesday, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg (CMS) school board passed the “Municipal Concerns Act of 2018.”  It is a stunningly brazen document.  As Jim Morrill of the Charlotte Observer explains, What the board did was pass the “Municipal Concerns Act of 2018,” a measure that would effectively block future…

Kudos to NPR for doing some old-fashioned investigative journalism.  NPR reporter Anya Kamenetz writes, This spring the U.S. Education Department reported that in the 2015-2016 school year, “nearly 240 schools … reported at least 1 incident involving a school-related shooting.” The number is far higher than most other estimates.

The 2018-19 school year is underway!  And, in recent years, stories about teacher shortages, long-term substitutes, and other staffing issues have become a staple of back-to-school reporting. The National Council on Teacher Quality lays out the facts about the issue. Only half the people who graduate from teacher…

WECT reports that Columbus County commissioners approved a plan to give Columbus County Schools $500,000 to relieve some of the district’s debt burden.  Whiteville City Schools will receive $200,000 due to a state law that requires city districts to receive comparable per-student funding to county systems. In April, WECT…

Here is a follow-up to my previous blog post about Red4EdNC’s advocacy events.  Despite what the Red4EdNC folks claim in their press release, 87 percent of North Carolina teachers agree or strongly agree that their school “is a good place to work and learn.” NEWS…