teacher retention

Lauren Fox of the Public School Forum discusses North Carolina’s worrisome teacher shortage

BY: - November 13, 2023

As news reports have made clear repeatedly in recent years, North Carolina is suffering from a big and deeply problematic teacher shortage – especially in rural low wealth districts and when it comes to teachers of color. The problem was big and bad even before the pandemic, and it’s gotten worse in its aftermath. Thankfully, […]

NCAE President Tamika Walker Kelly on the impact of the delayed state budget

BY: - July 24, 2023

Year-round schools are back in session and traditional calendar schools are opening in just a few short weeks. Over at the NC General Assembly, however, lawmakers have yet to turn in their homework – a state budget. The result: great uncertainty for administrators seeking to gear up for the new year – particularly in addressing […]

COMMENTARY

Weekend humor (sort of) from Celia Rivenbark: Let the teachers teach!

BY: - March 19, 2022

The Scene: Interior of a sixth-grade public school classroom in Floriginia, USA. Teacher: OK, class, today we are going to talk about the Civil Rights Movement. Student: My mama says you can’t indoctorate me so I’m going to have to report you. Teacher: “I think you meant to say “indoctrinate,” Billy, and I’m doing no […]

Monday numbers: A closer look at teacher attrition rates in NC

BY: - March 7, 2022

As North Carolina schools experience unprecedented learning loss across all grades, the state is facing another challenge: How to keep and recruit the best and brightest teachers. It is, in large part, those educators who will determine how well North Carolina's school children bounce back academically two years into the pandemic.

COMMENTARY

Forsyth County schoolteacher skewers conservative spin on teacher turnover and attrition numbers

BY: - February 5, 2019

As Clayton Henkel reported in yesterday’s Monday Numbers feature, the issue of school teacher turnover and attrition is back in the news again after the release of the latest edition of The State of the Teaching Profession in North Carolina. Those endeavoring to make sense of the new numbers would do well to check out […]

COMMENTARY

Not exactly: Debunking conservative claims that NC is a “destination” for teachers

BY: - April 20, 2017

AJ Fletcher Foundation education writer Lindsay Wagner posted a fine story yesterday in which she examines the latest in a long series of claims by staffers at the conservative John Locke Foundation that North Carolina is a big teacher magnet, despite an almost decade-long conservative war on public schools. Wagner’s verdict on the conservative claim: […]

COMMENTARY

Editorial: It’s no surprise that NC’s teacher pipeline is drying up

BY: - February 9, 2016

An editorial in today’s Wilmington Star-News does an excellent job of explaining why the ranks of North Carolina teachers and teachers in training are thinning: “Apparently, a lot fewer people want to be teachers in North Carolina. Gee. Wonder why? Alice Chapman, vice president for academic programs in the University of North Carolina system, told […]

COMMENTARY

Editorials blast ideological attacks on public education

BY: - August 24, 2015

Today is the first day of the 2015-16 school year in lots of places throughout North Carolina and editorial pages across the state this past weekend welcomed back the return of teachers and students with some harsh words for the political powers that be. The Winston-Salem Journal minced no words in an editorial entitled “Teacher […]