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News Policy Watch Investigates Top Story

Monday numbers: As national conservatives target schools, libraries, a look at the new wave of book banning

Last week the U.S. House passed H.R. 5 -- a federal “Parents Bill of Rights” that's part of a conservative wave of similarly named legislation that targets books and speech on topics like race, gender and sexuality in schools and would compel teachers and school staff to out transgender children to their families.

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Education Top Story

State House committee advances latest version of anti-Critical Race Theory legislation

Republicans defend bill as promoting equality, while Democrats forecast chilling impact on honest classroom discussions Rep. Ken Fontenot, a Wilson County Republican, vigorously defended House Bill 187 this week, contending that the bill restricting how educators teach about race, gender and sexuality, would prevent educators from teaching racially divisive doctrines.

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Education News Top Story

Lawmakers are making more school boards partisan, and getting more Republicans elected

One local bill at a time, state lawmakers have nearly tripled the number of partisan school boards across the state over the last decade — often over the objections of school board members themselves.  It’s a move some board members say is turning their school system from a hyperlocal, traditionally apolitical governing board into a contentious microcosm of national political debates.

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Original Commentary Progressive Voices Top Story

The 2023 legislative session: Out of the starting gate — sideways

We weren’t expecting it to be pretty – “it” being the launch of the N.C. General Assembly’s new session, with freshly emboldened conservatives eager to flex their muscles. The reality, one month after things got under way, hasn’t failed to disappoint. Two themes stand out:

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Education News Top Story

Durham high school students plead with state leaders for action to combat gun violence

“Thoughts and prayers” are no longer enough to protect children from gun violence, says Durham Hillside High School Principal William Logan. Gun violence proliferates, Logan said, because guns are too readily available, and lawmakers are unwilling to pass meaningful gun control laws.

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News Policy Watch Investigates Top Story

Monday numbers: North Carolina and the national wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation

Last week, Policy Watch delved into the stories of LGBTQ youth as new bills legislating their education, healthcare and identities work their way through the North Carolina General Assembly. The bills are part of a continuing wave of hundreds of new anti-LGBTQ measures filed across the country in the new year, many targeting transgender young people.

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News Policy Watch Investigates Top Story

“Completely and utterly terrifying.” Transgender youth face uncertain future as legislation targets their identities.

In many ways, Alex Lounsbury has been lucky. He knows that. Now in his senior year at Atkins High School, a technology magnet ...
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Original Commentary Progressive Voices Top Story

We don’t have to choose between supporting trans kids and respecting their parents

Republicans in the Iowa General Assembly and Gov. Kim Reynolds are determined to earn their culture war medals this winter with multiple bills attacking the phantom menace of transgender indoctrination. But perhaps the thorniest and most dangerous of these mean-spirited proposals is House File 180 (formerly House File 9). This would, among other things, require schools to obtain a parent’s permission before “facilitating any accommodation that is intended to affirm a student’s gender identity” if that identity is different from the one on the student’s birth certificate. [Click here to read North Carolina Senate Bill 49.]

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Uncertain future — Second graders Taylor Eatman (right) and Karyme Mendoza read together during a "buddy reading" time. Budget cuts have left teachers like Carter worried about how they will meet their students' needs with limited resources. (Photo by Ricky Leung)
Top Story Weekly Briefing

Republican lawmakers to NC schoolchildren and teachers: The attacks will continue until morale improves

In case you hadn’t noticed, North Carolina public schools, along with the children and teachers who inhabit them, are suffering mightily these days. The Public School Forum of North Carolina reports that the number of youth suicides in our state has doubled in recent years and that there’s been a 46% increase in the number of kids who have suffered with one or more “major depressive episodes” since the start of the pandemic. Meanwhile, thousands of educators are voting on the state of our public schools with their feet.

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Education Top Story

NC ranks 48th in school funding. Education advocacy group says it’s high time for lawmakers to fix that problem.

North Carolina’s ranking as the best state in the nation to do business doesn’t square with its rank near the bottom of states —  48th — in public school expenditures, Mary Ann Wolf, president and CEO of Public School Forum of North Carolina said Tuesday. When adjusted for regional cost differences, the Tar Heel state is dead last in school funding effort, Wolf said during the public school advocacy group's annual "Eggs and Issues Breakfast" in Raleigh. More than 400 educators, lawmakers and public school advocates attended the event.

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Education Top Story

Familiar debates over funding, teacher pay likely to dominate public education policy in 2023

The new year in K-12 education is likely to look a lot like the past year with the Leandro school funding lawsuit and a controversial teacher and licensure proposal likely among the key issues North Carolina lawmakers will debate when their 2023 "long session" begins later this month. Both topics garnered lots of attention toward the end of 2022. In November, the state Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling and ordered the General Assembly to hand over millions of dollars to pay for a long overdue school improvement plan.

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Education Top Story

Leandro, ‘merit pay’ for teachers, role of superintendent and state board dominate NC education debates in 2022

North Carolina’s public schools won a key victory in November when the state Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling and ordered the General Assembly to fork over millions of dollars to pay for a long overdue school improvement plan. The court order in the landmark Leandro school funding case was highly anticipated, and many believe the most important news to emerge on the education front in North Carolina in 2022.

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Original Commentary Progressive Voices Top Story

Five steps Gov. Cooper can take to ensure the Leandro ruling benefits students for years to come

In November, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling in the long-running Leandro court case. By a 4-3 margin, the justices ordered the state to provide our public schools, early education providers, and higher education institutions the funding necessary to implement years two and three of the Leandro Comprehensive Remedial Plan. The court ruled that the state continues to violate the constitutional rights of North Carolina’s students to have access to a “sound basic education.”

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Education News Top Story

On second attempt, proposed Wake charter school gets ‘improbable’ green light

The leaders of Heritage Collegiate Leadership Academy of Wake County (HCLA-Wake) sailed through a second-round interview Monday to win improbable, but unanimous support from the Charter School Advisory Board (CSAB) to open a K-8 school in northeastern Wake County. Why improbable?

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Education News Top Story

Monday numbers: A closer look at students taking advanced courses in North Carolina’s schools

In 2014, the General Assembly passed legislation, based on a similar law in Florida, to increase access and encourage broader participation in Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB) courses, and the Advanced International Cambridge Examinations (AICE) program. The rigorous courses allow high school students and academically advanced middle school students to sample college-level work and earn college credits.  

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