Tag Archives: Pat McCrory

Pat McCrory Shifting On Common Core?

Posted on July 2, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

Governors in states surrounding North Carolina and across the country have all realized what a mess Common Core is.

Governor Pence dumped it.
Governor Haley got rid of it.
Governor Fallin got rid of it.
Governor Nixon has just to sign to be rid of it.
Governor Jindal is making moves to drop it.
Governor Haslam made the first move to stop it by dropping the PARCC tests.
Governor Cuomo has a full on insurrection of moms in NY; in time, likely they will dump it.

Also worth noting:
The Republican National Committee has a resolution opposing it.
The U.S. Congress has a resolution opposing it.

Our state of NC has a conference committee hammering out the details between SB 812 and HB 1061. The end result will be a commission to replace Common Core and create higher standards for North Carolina, the removal of a copyrighted brand name from our statutes, the restoration of educational sovereignty to our state and the return of a true education to our students. Having said that, the question remains:
Is North Carolina’s Governor McCrory coming around finally?

The answer? Maybe so. Continue reading →

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Common Core, NCGA, Pat McCrory | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

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

Letter: Gov. McCrory, It Is Not Smart To Continue Common Core

Posted on June 10, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

The following is a letter from a concerned citizen of North Carolina, Anthony Bruno, to Governor Pat McCrory. Those of you following this blog have noted that our Governor has his heart in the right place, but the information he is getting on Common Core is coming from those with a vested interested in making sure it stays put.

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Good Friends,
Gov. McCrory has been disappointing in his continued support of Common Core. I believe he has been influenced by people who know little about it, yet continue to promote it.

This is the reason I went to the governor’s website and completed the form to urge him to support legislation to replace Common Core with a state developed standard recently passed by the General Assembly.

If you agree Common Core is not the best education standard for NC students, please take a few minutes and let the governor know why.

You can also share your opinion with the governor as this link. http://www.governor.state.nc.us/contact/email-pat

The letter I sent. (Below) Continue reading →

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The Gates Coup Of Education

Posted on June 9, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

Over the weekend, the Washington Post featured an article on Bill Gates and his foundation, which supplied nearly 3 billion in funding to develop, promote and push Common Core. Gates couldn’t do it alone, he needed the Department of Education on board and dangle a carrot in front of the states. He got it with the Race To The Top grant. What resulted was an education coup.
What opponents have been saying from the start is true: Common Core is not state-led. It’s Gates-led.

The follow-up article today in the Washington Post calls it just that, an education coup. The opening of this article lays bare the key spots of how this happened, with little or no vetting by the states.

KEEP READING…. Continue reading →

Posted in Common Core | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

North Carolina and The Shared Learning Collaborative

Posted on June 9, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

In my article earlier today, I linked to an article by Mercedes Schneider which had a familiar talking point in it. A talking point we’ve heard come out of the mouths of NC Chamber members and legislators who are their allies in forcing Common Core down the throats of NC parents and kids.
At the end of my earlier article, I mentioned that I didn’t even touch on the second half of Schneider’s article which dealt with the Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC) and the sharing of unprecedented student information. This article is the follow-up.

Schneider talks about their state superintendent and his pressuring of Governor Jindal to keep the Core and the PARCC assessments. This combination would result in an unprecedented amount of data collection on students as well as subsequent sharing. Here is the relevant section:

KEEP READING… Continue reading →

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Call Governor McCrory. Tell Him The Truth About Common Core.

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

This Is A Call To Action On Common Core: Governor McCrory​

Keep Calm Stop Common Core sm
NC Governor McCrory said this week that the “Republican-driven bill to repeal the Common Core education standards ‘is not a smart move,’ using his strongest language yet to warn against an effort pushed by conservatives in his own party.” – News and Observer 6/5/14
1. It’s time to FLOOD his office with phone calls, faxes and emails. Let him know how much support this bill has from all the people of NC:

Phone: 919-814-2000

Fax: 919-733-2120

Email Contact Form

The Governor is being misled about Common Core and public opinion of it by his Democrat education advisers, all of whom have strong connections to parties interested in promoting Common Core:
“But again, you don’t just throw out the whole thing if you have some minor issues you need to fix. We are trying to get some of the language out of the current bills in which we toss the whole thing out with no replacement.” – News and Observer 6/5/14

This statement is misleading. No one has mentioned “throwing out” Common Core and having no replacement. The Common Core bills set up a commission to create the highest possible standards for NC. Nothing will be removed until new standards are set.

Let the Governor know the truth about these bills, the support for them and why North Carolina opposes Common Core. Give Governor McCrory the FACTS:
The CCSS Are Not Rigorous, High Reaching or ‘Internationally Benchmarked’
The CCSS Are Not “State Developed”, “State-led” or “State Controlled”. The CCSSO and NGA own the copyright on the standards – NC has NO say in it.
The CCSS Are Costly – conservative estimates for NC taxypayers over the next five years are over $642 million dollars.
Federally funded Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium has developed national tests and RttT Grant Conditions that requires student level data collected be made available to the U.S. Department of Education – much of which is without parental consent!

2. Continue to encourage final passage of the Common Core bills passed in the NC Senate (SB812) and House (HB1061), which are on their way to being reconciled in conference.

Lt. Governor Dan Forest supports the bills and is confident the final bill will become law.

3. Pass it on! Tell as many people as you can to contact the Governor. Headed to the GOP Convention this weekend? Print this email out and take it with you! Continue reading →

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