North Carolina: A Sad Bedtime Story about a Failed State Takeover
This is a story so nutty that it would be hilarious if there were no children involved. Instead, it is an outrage.
When the fringe rightwingers of the Tea Party won control of the North Carolina legislature in 2011, they promptly passed laws authorizing charters and vouchers and transferring the funding from the state’s successful N.C. Teaching Fellows Program (which prepared career teachers) to the temps in Teach for America.
Then they looked wistfully to Tennessee and realized that what they were missing was a mechanism for state takeover of low-scoring public schools. Tennessee had its very own “Achievement School District,” funded by $100 million of federal Race to the Top money, and North Carolina wanted to do the same thing. The Tennessee ASD took control of the state’s lowest-performing schools and pledged to catapult them into the top 20% of schools in the state.
By 2016, it was clear that the ASD was a total failure but that did not deter North Carolina lawmakers. Give them credit for a combination of gullibility and ignorance.
To help the state takeover pass, a very wealthy conservative entrepreneur from Oregon named John Bryan funded a campaign for the state takeover legislation. Bryan handed out about $600,000 to Legislative candidates from 2011 to 2016.
The bill passed, and now North Carolina had its very own Innovative School District. The law said the state would take over up to five low-performing schools in its first CONTINUE READING: North Carolina: A Sad Bedtime Story about a Failed State Takeover | Diane Ravitch's blog