The following is an op-ed from Bryce Fiedler, director of CALN.
If you were tasked with making North Carolina public schools the best in the nation, it might be tempting to throw everything but the kitchen sink into your plan. But what begins as a clear mission soon becomes a sprawling, unwieldy project that gets bogged down by its own ambitions.
In many ways, that seems an apt description of North Carolina’s new education blueprint, “Achieving Educational Excellence.” Released in August, this five-year strategic plan aims to vault the state’s public schools to the top of national rankings. It entails more than 100 specific actions, a dozen or so measures of success (of varying relation to student achievement), eight thematic goals (called “pillars”), and the formation of at least two new entities to track progress along the way.
The plan is filled with good intentions. What it lacks, however, is a sufficient emphasis on meaningful academic outcomes. Let me explain.
To read the full piece in the Carolina Journal, click here.