NC Public Schools

A hat tip to WakeUP Wake County advocates for the following information.

Public Schools:

Click here for talking points on the following education bills:
http://www.icontact-archive.com/PX0U1-9kSYNda3mhP_nFSVu44ce7t97G?w=3

SB 325: Wake County School Board Districts - Redefines how and when Wake County School Board members are elected. Redraws School Board districts that were already redrawn in 2011 after the US Census and before School Board elections.

SB 236: Counties Responsible for School Construction - Allows county commissions to unilaterally seize ownership and control of school property from local school boards--for no less than 10 years. Yet equipment, maintenance, and repair responsibilities for the same properties could remain with the local school district.

HB 144: Offers a $1,250 tax credit per semester for every homeschooled child.

TWO THOUSAND TWELVE was a difficult year for public investments in North Carolina. We saw even more cuts to vital services on which the entire state depends, and the inadequate funding so many of our schools and other public structures have suffered through since the start of the Great Recession has become the new baseline by which some NC lawmakers will judge future spending decisions.

This is from a fellow teen activist in North Carolina, and the original post is on Amplify:

Every 26 seconds another teen becomes pregnant. That means that before the end of my speech, there will be another 11 young ladies faced with the difficulties of a pregnancy, the challenges of motherhood, and the chore of growing up way before their time. A rate of one teen every 26 seconds equates to 3,323 teens in one day and 1,212,923 in one year and last year, I was one of those teens. On March 31, 2008 I became pregnant at the age of 17. I, like many other girls at my school, had the daunting task of dealing the pressures of a pregnancy and continuing with my schooling. And after my daughter arrived I had to deal with the challenges of motherhood while working on graduating, all before the age of 18. My junior year in high school, I became a statistic, a statistic that could have easily been avoided.

http://andrewjacksondem.com

In his State-of-the-State speech on Monday evening, Governor Mike Easley called upon the General Assembly to expand the Earn to Learn Program to include high schoolers who currently are unable to attend a college due to their location by providing internet based courses and opportunities for these students. The state of North Carolina has made the preparation of high schoolers for college a major necessity. I applaud these efforts, but as an educator who sees high schoolers on a daily basis, I am concerned that too many students are being left behind because of the increased efforts of the state to push students down the college track.

North Carolina, like other states, faces a severe situation concerning the amount of teenagers failing to finish high school by dropping out. I teach "at-risk" students who on a daily basis consider dropping out of high school for a number of reasons generally related to their lives out of school. Coupled with these home related issues is the lack of a "keeping mechanism" for these students that would compel them to finish school.