Category Archives: June Atkinson

McCrory And Tillis Offer Teacher Pay Raise; Keep Tenure

Posted on June 26, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

Yesterday, Governor McCrory and Speaker of the House Thom Tillis held a press conference to announce alterations to their original Teacher Pay Plan. This new plan will be part of a new bill.

“There will be no teacher in the state who, in a couple years, if they follow our plan, will make less than $35,000 a year,” McCrory said.

The governor said teachers would get paid more for having master’s degrees and schools would get more money for textbooks, which is a growing problem in the state. A new pilot program would also be set up which would award teachers based on experience, leadership, performance, and market value.

“All these things can happen without sacrificing 4,000 to 6,000 teachers’ assistants, without sacrificing Medicaid,” McCrory said. “We can also do this while meeting the educational needs to pre-k, colleges, and universities.” – ABC 11

So, in essence, all the changes made in the past year are now gone.

The new plan will give teachers at 5% raise, allow them to keep tenure and includes keeping teacher assistants. Tillis added that the Education lottery funds are not needed to support the proposed bill. On hand was NC Superintendent and CCSSO President Elect, June Atkinson. Apparently, this has her blessing yet was quoted by ABC 11 as saying it was ‘not nearly enough’. That figured, right? The Governor would do well to get rid of Common Core if he intends to keep this promise — the costs to NC for keeping and implementing it are estimated at over $640 million for just the first five years. That does not include testing.

Watch the clip from the press conference via News and Observer on YouTube: Continue reading →

Posted in EDUCATION, June Atkinson, NCGA, Pat McCrory, Video | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

News and Observer’s John Frank Can’t Get Common Core Stories Right

Posted on June 25, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

Another day, another News and Observer Common Core fiasco. John Frank has gotten really skilled at regurgitating talking points instead of actual reporting. I could pick this latest attempt down line by line, but frankly I don’t have the time to waste. I will hit highlights instead. This section bothered me: Continue reading →

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Common Core, June Atkinson, Media Bias, NCGA | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Common Core Aligned: WorkKeys

Posted on June 23, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

Common Core is not ‘just a set of standards’. That statement is one of the bigger lies perpetrated by the supporters of the Core. The ultimate goal is to align everything from materials to books, apps to tests and yes, the means of entry into the workforce.
Common Core, arguably, is lends itself to reinforcing the ‘cradle to grave’ tracking and funneling of your child and their potential. As I was thinking about writing this article, I couldn’t help but make a comparison of what is happening with this kind of tracking and a book I’ve recently read, Divergent. Kids are placed in one of five given classes of society based on what a test tells them is their best match. If your text doesn’t given conclusive results, you’re considered Divergent.

[VIDEO CLIP]

Are our children currently being funneled into one career or another based on often poorly designed tests? We have multiple tests for kids across multiple grades, multiple entry tests for colleges as well. How long until it’s pared down to just a few tests? Tests aimed at becoming some kind of workforce sorting mechanism are not a thing of the future. They’re here now. Those of us standing up and pointing it out? Are we Divergent?

WorkKeys

The following article is going to get a bit involved. There is an article I am going to refer back to. It is essential one reads and comprehends this article before reading what I have to add to it. Please read Missouri Education Watchdog’s Public Education as Workforce Training. Is WorkKeys in Your State. Continue reading →

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Common Core, June Atkinson | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Michaels on NCSpin: Atkinson won’t run again in 2016

Posted on June 22, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

Cash Michaels made the claim on NCSpin ‘s 6/22/14 episode) that State Superintendent June Atkinson won’t run again in 2016. Also in this episode was an minor hissy fit by NC Policy Watch’s Chris Fitzsimon. For a laugh, watch the portion from the 19:45 mark talking about Moral Monday. At the end of it, Fitzsimon has a bit of a meltdown. I laughed.

Watch the Cash Michaels clip below:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/K2UJnREgvtc?t=26m43s]

Gee, someone else thinks that too? I’ve noted before that she dismantled her campaign website and dissolved her campaign fund at the NC Board of Elections. There is likely more than a simple wish to retire, the fact she’s losing allies at a rapid rate, has done little to advance the teacher pay agenda or the fact she has the Perdue knack for making ridiculous and embarrassing hyperbolic statements. No, I bet it has more to do with her stealthily sneaking the fundamentally flawed standards in to North Carolina.

What fundamentally flawed standards? Oh that’s right, the majority of citizens still haven’t heard of them after two years of implementation. Or maybe you have heard of Common Core?

As President Elect of the CCSSO (one of the two D.C. trade organizations that hold the copyright on Common Core) she’s made an unholy mess out of it. I doubt many voters out there cared for the way she’s treated them during this fiasco.

KEEP READING…. Continue reading →

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Common Core, June Atkinson | Tagged | 3 Comments

NC Must Get Out Of The Common Core’s SBAC

Posted on June 20, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

I’ve written in the past about the SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium) and its ramifications for keeping North Carolina tied to Common Core even with two bills in our General Assembly attempting to get us out of the standards. For those who have not dug into the SBAC, I encourage you to do so. Start with the Cooperative Agreement between the U.S. Department of Education and the Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium.

The Cooperative Agreement in a nutshell is the U.S. Dept. of Education getting around the law barring them from creating national tests and curriculum by farming it out to a private company. It was paid for with your tax dollars via the Obama administration’s Stimulus package, of which a portion of was funneled into the Race To The Top Grants. The purpose statement from the Cooperative Agreement:

The purpose of this agreement is to support the consortium recipient in developing new, common assessment systems that are valid, reliable and fair for their intended purposes and for all student subgroups, and that measure student knowledge and skills against a common set of college- and career-ready standards in mathematics and English language arts. In light of the technical nature of this grant and the fact that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) will likely be reauthorized during the course of this project, the Department will provide necessary flexibility to respond to changing circumstances, technology, and laws by working collaboratively with the recipient through this agreement. The objective is to assist the consortium in fulfilling, at minimum, the goals articulated in the consortium’s approved Race to the Top Assessment (RTTA) application, requirements established in the RTTA Notice Inviting Applications (NIA) for New Awards for Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 that was published in the Federal Register on April 9, 2010, and any subsequent additions detailed through this agreement.

The price tag was large:

The estimated cost for the work to be performed under this Agreement is $159,976,843 and $15,872,696 for the supplemental award.

This article will hit some of the bigger reasons why North Carolina needs to get out of the SBAC. However, before going forward, it is worth noting that the SBAC tests were a confirmed “glitch” fiasco and the tests themselves, like PARCC’s, were shrouded in secrecy. Teachers have told me they were not allowed to see the pilot test beforehand in NC nor were they allowed to talk about specifics afterward.

Keep Reading…. Continue reading →

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Common Core, June Atkinson, NCGA | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Education Simplification Amendment Is Overdue

Posted on June 12, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

The NC State Superintendent has had a lot of freedom to put North Carolina on the hook for big future spending and in obligating our state to activities that one can arguably say would fall in the category of a power overreach.

Just take the one example of Common Core. Dr. Atkinson, along with Governor Perdue, committed North Carolina to the Common Core before the standards were even published via North Carolina’s Race To The Top Application. That very act alone deserves scrutiny and an investigation, but to date, nothing has been done. Bluntly put, these two pretty much just got away with it. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Or it goes to India.

In the same vein, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has grown every year, nearly unchecked. Educrat bloat, bureaucracy and layer upon layer of ‘new positions’ that rationalize other ‘new positions’ has been the result. That growth has a long list of high salaries attached to it as well.

I pulled down the salary information for DPI last Fall and found that 45 people there made more than a base salary of $100,000. ….

KEEP READING Continue reading →

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION, June Atkinson, NCGA | Tagged | Comments Off on Education Simplification Amendment Is Overdue