6 Comments

Good comments but honestly...you do not oppose school vouchers? I do. I do not oppose private schools but I strongly believe that NC cannot serve many education masters. We have a constitutional obligation to fund ONE unified free system of public education and that is what our taxes are for...the common, public good....not private schools or private roads etc. etc.

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Ask from Government (budget office) to review the private schools funded entities and ask:

salaries of their teachers. pay for masters' degrees, vacation time allotted, other funds spent by the management of these schools. Place them up against the legislative requirements for our public schools and see what the differences are. Look at the annual test scores of both of these and make sure these results are audited as well as the financial records of the private schools. State auditors would have the financial information of the state supported schools and should have those of the private school vouchered schools also.. Compare these. Totally agree with Yvonne Brannon's comments also. Jane Smith Patterson--daughter of a public school teacher and sister of a retired school teacher. Math medal winner in the Tabor City High School, two additional degrees, brother was Ph.D. in Engineering and Dean of an engineering school and a winner of the Herman Oberth Award-( Rocket))s Is it true that we are allowing at some colleges out of state citizens to attend at $ 500 a semester from other states (legislative requirements) (Responsible for development of the Math and Science High School) as one of our accomplishments in one of Jim Hunt's gubernatorial initiatives. I am former vice-chancellor at UC Wilmington, University of Pennsylvania initiative to develop field of psychometrics and Member of the Clinton-Gore Initiative of the US National Information Infrastructure. II also received an award from the US government for my work on the development of the Internet Deployment Note: NC has women astronauts also and one of them who went to the NC School of Science and Mathematics grew up in eastern NC and has the longest time spent in space I believe. Christina Koch She is scheduled out on the next group in a few years as one of the 3 persons who will be going back into space on a significant research mission.

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“Brakes not working as well as they should? Let’s drain the brake fluid!” - NCGOP mechanic

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I tend to agree regarding school vouchers as a viable concept if used honestly and with transparency. But what seems afoot is a way to undermine and continue to underfund NC public schools "using" the vouchers concept. Necessary rules for vouchers are not in place. Do administrative personnel have guidelines for the appropriate comparisons Patterson enumerates in her comments? Doubtful. And cumbersome. As I connect some dots I now grasp how someone as ill qualified and rude as Michele Morrow could be on the Republication ticket for state superintendent. I thought the fact of her running for any public office was a joke. Fog begins to clear. Is the "voucher movement" merely action to re-segregate without having to say it? A way to undo Brown vs. Board of Education? In today's political climate--I'm sad to say--this is what it looks like. And it smells rotten.

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Excellent summary of the problem.

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Agree 1000%

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