The race for state superintendent will determine who will support and advocate for the state’s 2,500 public schools and lead the Department of Public Instruction (DPI). This election cycle, it also a race in which experience in public education is pitted against an outsider to the system.  

Last week the North Carolina General Assembly passed a conference report, also referred to as a mini budget that includes $463 million to clear the waitlist of families that have applied for the Opportunity Scholarship Grant Program and provide voucher money for those attending private schools. 

The Jackson County Board of Education has signed a resolution urging the North Carolina General Assembly to prioritize public education over funding an expansion to the private school voucher system. 

There are some things John Hood (SMN, May 29) and his ilk don’t want you to think about in their relentless promotion of “school choice” and “educational freedom” — their feel-good euphemisms for the transfer of your taxpayer dollars to private, church-related and “charter” schools. Hood, who pops up everywhere these days, is a paid mouthpiece for the libertarian-conservative and free-market agenda of Art Pope (remember him?) — and it shows. 

As the July 1 budget deadline for Child Care Stabilization grants approaches, it appears the Republican-led North Carolina House and Senate are struggling to agree on how to spend the $30 billion or so taxpayer dollars slated for the upcoming fiscal year. 

North Carolina is becoming a national leader in expanding choice and competition in education. For some North Carolinians, this is a source of pride. For others, it’s shameful. 

Haywood School Superintendent Anne Garrett came up with a novel approach for predicting how many students a new charter school will siphon out of the public school system.

Haywood County Schools have been losing students slowly but steadily over the past decade. Despite high academic performance, the school system has 500 fewer students.

Where did they go? Why? Will the decline continue?

• Case #1: The homeschool factor
• Case #2: Recession drives working families to leave Haywood
• Case #3: Private schools only a minor league player
• Case #4: New charter school makes a trial run in Haywood
• Haywood Schools grapple with enrollment wildcard

It’s been six months since the N.C. General Assembly passed a budget earmarking $10 million for school vouchers to low-income students, but the issue is just heating up in Western North Carolina. On Jan. 9, Macon County became the first school district in the four-county region to add its name to a lawsuit decrying the program as unconstitutional, but they’re not the only ones talking about it. 

In a unanimous vote at the Jan. 28 school board meeting, Jackson County also added its name to the litigation, and Haywood County discussed the issue at its Jan. 13 meeting when chairman Chuck Francis made an impassioned request that the board vote to join the lawsuit. However, the vote died on the floor without a motion to carry it forward. Swain County’s school board has not discussed the issue, and its next meeting is not until Feb. 10.