Educating New Generations
North Carolina has a lot to be proud of: great early childhood education programs, a fine network of community colleges, and a wonderful university system. But we also face tremendous challenges. Nearly one third of North Carolina students who enter high school do not graduate. There are enormous racial and geographic disparities in both resources and achievement. And our rapidly growing communities and aging buildings are putting great strains on school facilities.
As governor, Richard Moore will work to cut the high school dropout rate in half, build schools smarter and faster, take steps to attract the very best teachers, and increase accountability to improve performance statewide.
In this section:
Reducing the High School Drop-Out Rate
Meeting Our School Construction Needs
Attracting the Very Best Teachers
Accountability that Delivers Results
Financial Literacy
Reducing the High School Drop-Out Rate
Nearly one third of North Carolina students fail to graduate from high school. The dropout rate is among the most urgent problems we face, and as governor, Richard’s top education priority will be to cut it in half. Richard’s dropout reduction plan focuses on teaching real job skills, bringing communities together, addressing resource disparities across our state, and holding principals and administrators accountable.
Richard believes that high schools need to teach real job skills. Students who would otherwise drop out will have a much greater incentive to continue if they can learn real world skills they can put to use. Our state’s Learn & Earn program has created a strong model for us to build upon, but we can do more. College offers incredible opportunities and we should hold down tuition in order to ensure it is an accessible option. But high schools cannot be merely preparatory institutions; they must also teach skills and values that will help students become productive citizens as they transition to the workplace.
We should also pull together members of the community to address the dropout problem. In some of our communities, fewer than half of high school students eventually go on to graduate. Consequently, this is not simply an education issue; it also has serious implications for economic development and crime. There is an unsurprising correlation between the counties with the highest dropout rates and the counties with the highest unemployment rates. As governor, Richard will pull together not only parents, teachers, and education leaders, but also law enforcement officials and business leaders in order to meet this challenge. Every part of the community has a stake in this issue and a role to play.
Additionally, Richard wants to increase accountability for principals and administrators. For far too long, education officials used statistics that did not accurately reflect the enormity of the drop-out problem. Now that we have resolved the disparity between official dropout statistics and actual graduation rates, we are better able to zero in on the schools and regions with the most pressing problems. In Richard’s administration, education officials responsible for schools with the highest drop-out rates will have to demonstrate they are taking aggressive actions to change the way those schools operate.
Finally, Richard’s school construction plan will free up millions of dollars each year to invest in quality teachers and reduce class size.
Meeting Our School Construction Needs
North Carolina is facing a classroom crisis. The State Department of Public Instruction projects almost $10 billion in public school construction needs over the next five years. As time goes by, the cost of building schools is rising astronomically while our children are forced into crowded classrooms or trailers. Numerous studies have shown that old, low quality schools hold teachers and students back.
Richard Moore has a plan to meet this challenge. He has proposed creating a public-private partnership that will build schools faster and smarter, saving millions each year that can be used to invest in quality teachers and reduce class size.
The Future School Partnership will be a non-profit organization that is established to help North Carolina school systems meet their school construction needs. Local governments will be able to enter into pre-development agreements with the Partnership that allow for land acquisition, the regulatory approval process, and design work to begin immediately. In addition, costly change orders are greatly reduced in the design-build process because builders work directly with the architects in the design phase rather than bidding on the project after the design is completed. Economists at the UNC-Charlotte School of Business have estimated that North Carolina school systems can realistically achieve construction savings of 20% by taking advantage of this model, while simultaneously reducing construction time by 25%.
The Partnership will offer school systems the ability to purchase or place an option on land in areas of future development where schools will be needed. It will also work with architects and contractors to develop energy-efficient standardized school plans. School systems will have the option of using off-the-shelf designs that are tailored to specific sites and local needs. This will save time and money on both school design and materials. Rather than starting from scratch, architects will be able to adapt existing plans to fit local needs. And if contractors know building plans in advance, they can negotiate better contracts and minimize inflation costs by purchasing materials early.
Click here to read the full plan.
Attracting the Very Best Teachers
We have a tremendous need for high-quality teaching professionals in schools across North Carolina. The most important thing we can do to improve this situation is to better compensate our teachers.
As a member of the General Assembly, Richard supported pay raises for teachers. As governor, he will use his budget proposal and the bully pulpit to focus the attention of the public and the legislature on raising teacher pay. We should have a competitive starting salary for teachers and also reward the teachers who stay in our schools.
We should also continue and expand efforts to retain teachers by involving them in the planning and decision-making at their schools and in their districts. Governor Easley started the Teacher Working Conditions Survey, and Richard has pledged to continue the program and implement its findings as governor. Additionally, teachers and all school employees should be able to take a personal day without having the substitute teacher’s pay deducted from their paycheck.
As state treasurer, Richard has helped develop incentives to encourage teachers to move into rural communities. He established the Teacher Mortgage Program, which helped teachers purchase their first home by buying down interest rates. As governor, Richard will continue to introduce innovative measures to entice qualified professionals to pursue a career in teaching with a focus on placing them in the communities with the greatest needs.
Accountability That Delivers Results
As a national leader in the educational accountability movement under Governors Hunt and Easley, North Carolina has collected information on educational performance for more than a decade. Yet little is done with that data. As governor, Richard would direct the State Board of Education, Department of Public Instruction and our university system to work together to examine the data that we have collected. From this analysis, we would be able to distinguish those programs, curricula, and techniques that successfully raised student performance from those that need improvement. Because of the accountability measures already in place, we have an unprecedented ability to learn from what we have done in the recent past. We should use that knowledge to guide future policy changes.
Financial Literacy
Richard has worked hard to increase the financial knowledge of North Carolinians, educating consumers and our next generation about how they can protect their personal finances and build wealth. Asheville Citizen-Times editorial page editor Joy Franklin wrote that, "It's heartening to see Moore use his office to encourage North Carolinians to develop their financial acumen."
In 2005, Moore teamed up with state Senator Kay Hagan to support legislation requiring school districts to teach financial literacy in high school. He spearheaded a recent survey given to 7th graders in North Carolina, called $kill $et, in order to measure our students’ understanding of basic financial concepts like saving and budgeting. The results – an average score of under 50 percent – underscore that we still have a lot of work to do educating our students about the fundamentals of money management.
Richard has used a number of additional outreach efforts, including the Jumpstart Coalition, NC Saves, and the BizWorld Foundation, to teach basic financial concepts. For example, the Asheville Citizen-Times wrote that "the NC Saves Coalition, a group of government, nonprofit and corporate groups chaired by Moore, is . . . a worthy endeavor. It is designed to help average people establish their own financial security in a time when the rules of the game seem increasingly more complex every day."
As governor, Richard will continue to make public education more relevant and useful to the lives of our youth. Doing so will not only benefit students who need to understand the fundamentals of money management when they enter the job market; it will also benefit the economy as a whole.
February 21, 2008
