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When did North Carolina's school diistricts become predominately County Wide Districts?
Were County Wide districts a public referendum or legislative mandate?
Were public school employees ever unionized?
When was the ban on union representation of public school employees enacted?
As you can tell by my posting name I am a resident of Michigan and our public employee situation here will soon become as bad as Wisconsin's. I admire what North Carolina has done and wondered if it was always this way or did it evolve to the current format, and if evolved - when.
I'm not sure why you admire the fact NC has one of the lowest teacher salaries in the country, one of the highest 5 year turnover rates among new teachers, and the schools are continually ranked near the lowest in the country.
No, that is not my motivation. And neither is dismantling any existing collective bargaining rights.
All Michigan school districts receive their operating funds from the State; yet the school districts serving wealthy communities receive a $15,000+ per pupil annual stipend, where as school districts serving impoverished areas receive only a $7,500 per pupil annual stipend. Does this sound fair to you?
Naturally, every Teacher and School Administrator in Michigan has one goal - to get hired by a district serving a wealthy community. Not only are the students in poorer areas short changed in educational opportunities, they are also short changed in the dedication and interest of their teachers.
My admiratin of North Carolina schools is based on the much more equal per pupil funding, and correspondingly more equal wages & benefits provided to employees - which both translate into more equal educational opportunites for all students.
Whether the current NC funding level is adequate or not is for others to analyze.
No, that is not my motivation. And neither is dismantling any existing collective bargaining rights.
All Michigan school districts receive their operating funds from the State; yet the school districts serving wealthy communities receive a $15,000+ per pupil annual stipend, where as school districts serving impoverished areas receive only a $7,500 per pupil annual stipend. Does this sound fair to you?
Naturally, every Teacher and School Administrator in Michigan has one goal - to get hired by a district serving a wealthy community. Not only are the students in poorer areas short changed in educational opportunities, they are also short changed in the dedication and interest of their teachers.
My admiratin of North Carolina schools is based on the much more equal per pupil funding, and correspondingly more equal wages & benefits provided to employees - which both translate into more equal educational opportunites for all students.
Whether the current NC funding level is adequate or not is for others to analyze.
Having taught for years in Michigan, I can safely say there is not much here to admire...as far as state operation of the system is concerned.
Isn't the $15K stipend just local taxes residents voted in to assure their schools were top performers? Other districts have the opportunity to increase millage as well, but elect not to raise taxes..
[list=1][*]When did North Carolina's school diistricts become predominately County Wide Districts?
I suspect you'd have to ask each district individually, but I know that in Wake (Raleigh) there used to be a Raleigh city district and a county district, but they merged in 1976. As far as I know, counties having just one or maybe 2-3 districts has "always" been the case; it's not a matter of "becoming" that way. The biggest change in NC schools was of course (racial) integration which I believe was mandated in NC around 1970. So, to answer your question, I guess everywhere had a "black district" and a "white district" before that, but never districts for every town, like some states do.
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[*]Were County Wide districts a public referendum or legislative mandate?
See above--pretty much "always been". But any changes to the district must be legislated. I'm sure you could research "history of NC school systems" or something, or check with the NC Board of Ed. for questions on the history of NC's school districts. But am a NC native and what I mention above is how it's been as long as I remember (barely old enough to remember Integration and I had not started school yet when that went into effect).
[quote=zthatzmanz28;18035896]Having taught for years in Michigan, I can safely say there is not much here to admire...as far as state operation of the system is concerned.
Isn't the $15K stipend just local taxes residents voted in to assure their schools were top performers? Other districts have the opportunity to increase millage as well, but elect not to raise taxes..[/quote]
Prior to Proposal A, which increased the State Sales Tax from 4% to 6% to fund the operating costs of all school districts, local districts could vote in higher millages to pay for their schools. Some Districts did this and some Districts were just the beneficiaries of having high value industrial and/or commercial property within the district boundaries, meaning the residents paid relatively little in local taxes to support the schools. With the passage of Proposal A the wealthy schools were given a higher per pupil stipend (100% higher in isolated cases) to "hold them harmless" from the change. A special catch-up provision was also included in the Bill to eventually raise the student stipends of the financially poor schools to a higher level equal to wealthy districts. But the dollar value of the catch-up provision is so small, a $50/student annual bonus, that it will require nearly 100 years to achieve financial parity between the majority of districts.
Following the Proposal A change, local Districts can pass bond millages only. This is money used to build/renovate/repair school buildings and property. Individual Districts cannot pass local millages for operating funds.
County-wide Intermediate School Districts can pass operating fund millages to increase monies for all schools in the ISD. To date I am not aware of any of these passing - although the Washtenaw Intermediate School district came close in 2010.
Call me radical, but I would love to see consolidation of school districts along County lines (reducing the number of school districts in Michigan by almost 6 fold), nearly 100% equity in per pupil funding, matching school calendars, and equity in wages and benefits across the State.
I also love the concept of Year Round Schools. Why build structures that sit empty for 1/3 of the year?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MI-Roger
No, that is not my motivation. And neither is dismantling any existing collective bargaining rights.
All Michigan school districts receive their operating funds from the State; yet the school districts serving wealthy communities receive a $15,000+ per pupil annual stipend, where as school districts serving impoverished areas receive only a $7,500 per pupil annual stipend. Does this sound fair to you?
Naturally, every Teacher and School Administrator in Michigan has one goal - to get hired by a district serving a wealthy community. Not only are the students in poorer areas short changed in educational opportunities, they are also short changed in the dedication and interest of their teachers.
My admiratin of North Carolina schools is based on the much more equal per pupil funding, and correspondingly more equal wages & benefits provided to employees - which both translate into more equal educational opportunites for all students.
Whether the current NC funding level is adequate or not is for others to analyze.
You're young, aren't you?
I am not young & lived in Michigan until I was 13. I went to school in Grand Rapids. The public schools were so bad that anyone who could scrape the money together sent their kids to parochial schools, either Christian Reform or Catholic.
I have 3 older cousins who went to elementary school in the same 1 room school house in Van Buren County that our grandmother had gone to grade school in. The school is still being used, but now just for kindergarten.
All 3 of those cousins became teachers.one in Kalamazoo County & the other 2 in Van Buren County. I can remember when the oldest started teaching, he & his wife both taught & he had to work a 2nd job, year round to make ends meet.
I'm a transplant to NC, but from what I see some schools are better than others, just like everywhere else.
You do realize that year round schools still have the same number of days out as traditional schools? They are in session 180 days
Yes, Year round schools operate on the premise of the student body being sub-divided in to four groups, and the school year is divided into four major partitions or terms. Each group is in school for 3 of the four terms, three terms equate to one full academic year, and the groups rotate which terms they attend school.
A school building that can physically accommodate 900 students, can educate 1200 students by using the building year round. Likewise, a District only needs to construct 3/4 of the normal complement of elementary buildings.
Traditionalists hate it for the simple reason that "It wasn't like that when I was in school!" What they fail to remember is that the September to May school calendar was developed for an agrarian society that depended upon child labor to survive.
Parents with elementary students and an open mind usually like it after their kids start school. The traditional extended Holiday driven breaks still apply, each sub-group has additional unique extended breaks so families can travel at times of lower tourist density, and the student's minds don't lose as much information between grade levels since they no longer have the 3-month summer break.
Because our society places far too much emphasis on High School sports things get real crazy with High School schedules. Having some of your children in secondary schools while the others are in primary schools is a family nightmare that still needs to be solved.
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The school is still being used, but now just for kindergarten.
