VIDEO: Common Core Halloween Style

Posted on November 7, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

Too good not to share!  This is Common Core, Halloween Style!

BOOM:

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

So What Does Moral Monday Do Now?

Posted on November 7, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

This week, the Reverend Barber and his merry band of big government, big spending extreme leftists got their asses handed to them when North Carolinians headed to the polls.

Rev. William BarberThe big cries about ‘voter suppression’ utterly fell flat. Almost nothing changed at the General Assembly. Hagan was shown the door. Moral Monday racked up arrests for what exactly? Oh, right – so Barber could get a book and film out of it and more air-time on MSNBC.

Hey MoMo’s? Are you seeing any money out of those deals?

Barber is continuing his ineffective haranguing, but one can’t help laugh at this point.

Check out the dueling headlines:

 

WRAL headline: NAACP: Tillis won because of voter law, not policies
WNCN headline: NC NAACP president requests meeting with Tillis, McCrory

But.. But.. Voter Suppression!!!
Yeah, not so much. Let’s look at the facts.

Voter turnout was at a historic high for NC midterms, early voting was up and 2,916,068 ballots were cast. In fact, early voting was up 20% compared to 2010. Part of that was due to the increased number of early voting sites.

Exit polls showed only 36 percent of those voters were Democrats; the lowest percentage for Dems in exit polls since 1984. Looks like Democrats might have been ‘suppressing’ themselves by staying home.

The Black vote was not suppressed either; it was up in NC when comparing it to the previous midterms in 2010.

Republicans kept their super-majority and added to it in the Senate. They only lost 4 seats in the House, however they gained one as well.  Republicans gained a seat in the Senate.  When you take the House and Senate gains and losses and cancel them out, they overall only lost two seats.

Becki Gray at The Locker Room notes the pick ups at the NCGA and more. Emphasis added:

If the NCGA was wondering if they should continue the momentum they started in 2010, I think they got their sign last night. The Senate GOP held on to all their seats and picked up one for a total of 34 out of 50. The House GOP lost 4 but picked up one for a total of 74 out of 120.  The average NCGA loss for a governor’s party in their first mid-term election is 22 seats. The GOP had a net loss of 2 seats in the state legislature last night. Wow! Despite misleading and vicious attacks on their transformational policies over the last four years on education, tax, regulations, energy and health care policies, North Carolinians sent a clear message from across the state– keep it up.

Gray also noted 10 counties had tax increases on the ballot and 8 said no. The new Wake County Commissioners might want to keep that one in mind.

So, what does Moral Monday do now?  It appears continuing to embarrass themselves isn’t an option.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), ELECTIONS, Moral Monday, NC Dems, NC NAACP, NCGA, Reverend Barber | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Have NC Teachers Done The DPI Common Core Survey Yet?

Posted on November 7, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

The day after the last Common Core Academic Standards Review Commission meeting, a survey went out from NC Dept. of Public Instruction (DPI) to North Carolina teachers.

Given how busy our teachers are, I’m betting more than not deleted the email.  It’s also interesting that this survey is an open link that anyone can enter data into.  One has to ask how accurate and scientific the results will be.

One has to wonder why this wasn’t done prior to adoption and implementation? If it was, where are those results? Maybe they did and circular filed it along with the CommonCoreStandards.org feedback?

Oh, by the way, one has to enter data in every field in order to advance to the next page of this survey it seems. Way to discourage people from completing it!

This is the email I obtained that went out to NC Teachers:

From: Vanessa Jeter <Vanessa.Jeter@dpi.nc.gov>
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2014 9:03:06 AM
To: For NC Teachers
Subject: ELA and Math Standards Feedback Survey Live Now

This fall the NC Department of Public Instruction begins the standards review process for the English language arts and mathematics standards.  We will be following our established State Board policy (GCS-F-012) that calls for a standards review of content standards every five years.

As the NCDPI standards review process progresses, we look forward to gathering information from stakeholders to inform the work of the NCDPI Standards Review Committee.  To gather input, NCDPI is administering two surveys this fall—one in October for educators and one in November for the broader community.

The educators’ survey is now live for teachers and other educators to complete: http://ncdpireview.weebly.com The survey will be available until Friday, Nov. 21, at 5 p.m.

The link will also be posted on the NDDPI website.

We hope you will take this survey and provide your specific feedback regarding the current English language arts and mathematics standards. Your feedback will be extremely valuable as we move through this process.

Thank you for your support.

Robin B. McCoy, Ph.D.
NCDPI Director, K-12 Curriculum and Instruction

Tracy S. Weeks, Ph.D.
NCDPI Chief Academic and Digital Learning Officer

Posted in Academic Standards Review Commission, Common Core, NC DPI | 1 Comment

All Your Toddlers Are Belong To Us

Posted on November 6, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

The Obama administration is moving forward this December to make sure that all your toddlers are belong to us.

 

The embedded tweet above was from Valerie Jarrett:

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WRAL’s Cullen Browder Digs Into Questionable Spending By Ed Official

Posted on November 6, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

WRAL’s Cullen Browder dug into the questionable spending habits of former Granville Superintendent Tim Farley. The report included some pretty interesting stuff.

Here’s the meat of the current WRAL story:

WRAL Investigates reviewed statements for the five credit cards and found thousands of dollars in technology purchases, convertible sports car rentals, two spa charges at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, an online order for a 12-pack of Heineken BeerTender Tubes, an Amazon Prime membership, non-itemized receipts from restaurants such as Dugans Pub, Atlantic Beer Garden and Whiskey Priest, and other purchases that appeared questionable. – WRAL, 11/5/14, Convertibles, beer tubes, spa: Auditors probing Granville schools’ spending

This report on Farely comes at about the same time that CMS Superintendent Heath Morrison has resigned amid an apparent misconduct investigation.  Morrison was making somewhere around $288k, perhaps Mr. Browder will dig into him as well? Maybe into the spending habits in Charlotte Mecklenburg?

I sincerely hope Mr. Browder doesn’t stop there.

Here are some places Mr. Browder could start and I am sure expand on:

How about a look at High Ed too?

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments Off on WRAL’s Cullen Browder Digs Into Questionable Spending By Ed Official

An Update On That CMS Sales Tax Referendum

Posted on November 6, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

Over the last month, I’ve been noting the politicking in our schools in part of the state over a sales tax referendum. That referendum didn’t pass.  Color me shocked that no one wanted their taxes increased.

The referendum failed by a 3-2 margin according to the Charlotte Observer. Despite all that noise and fury, voters said ‘No’:

‘No’ votes outnumbered support for the increase by 61 percent to 39 percent with most precincts reporting, a margin that had held steady from the earliest returns. – Charlotte Observer, 11/4/14, Mecklenburg sales tax: Failed by 3-2 margin

WCNC had a breakdown of the proposal:

  • 80% would have gone to pay increases for CMS employees.
  • CPCC would have gotten 7.5%
  • The Arts and Science Council, 7.5%
  • The library system, 5%

80% to pay increase for CMS employees. Note they said employees and not just teachers.

Just a quick reminder, CMS school’s teacher salary supplement for 2013 was one of the largest in the state. See the list of salary supplements for 2013 for yourself.

During that 2013 supplement schedule time frame, there were 10,182 teachers in CMS and 9,668 of them took the supplement pay. The average supplement was $6,376.

During that same time frame, there were 171 principals. All of them took their supplement of which the average was $22,440.

Assistant principals totaled 207 and all of them took the supplement as well. The average supplement for assistant principals was $13,619.

On a related note, the $131,5 million dollar bond in Iredell did pass — despite it’s famous  spokesperson not voting.  Maybe the local superintendent got a boost from Moral Monday at the polls like he did from Reverend Barber near the end of this clip.
Remember: Forward Together, Not One Cent Back!

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION, ELECTIONS | Tagged | Comments Off on An Update On That CMS Sales Tax Referendum