URGENT: Lawmakers vote Wednesday on a bill that will create a special state school district to take over schools.
We’ll get straight to the point: NC lawmakers are considering a bill this session that will allow the state to take over schools that receive a Grade F on the state grading scale. They’ll become part of a new district called an “Achievement School District,” (ASD) and they’ll be run like charter schools.
Our Schools First needs your help in communicating to legislators that this bill shouldn’t make it out of our committee. The committee vote is this Wednesday.
Here’s why the proposed Statute 115C-75.7A is a bad idea:
- The State of Tennessee has tried this model before, spending half a billion dollars, only for research to show it didn’t work.
- One Nashville education leader called the Achievement School District “nothing short of devastating” and “a failed experiment.” [source]
- Research has shown that the North Carolina’s A-F grading scale is not a predictor of student performance. Rather, the measure is a greater predictor of a school’s demographic population.
- Further, the A-F grading scale doesn’t measure student growth. In other words, a D-rated school’s students could very well have learned more than an A-graded school’s students in the course of an academic year.
We need your help in stopping the ASD bill from getting any further in the legislature. Write your representative now to let him or her know that the ASD bill shouldn’t make it out of committee. (Find your representative here)
Or, email the K-12 Education committee NOW to tell them this bill is no good. Their email addresses are below–copy and paste, and feel free to use the sample letter below that.
Jeffrey.Elmore@ncleg.net; Craig.Horn@ncleg.net; Linda.Johnson2@ncleg.net; Tricia.Cotham@ncleg.net; Edward.Hanes@ncleg.net; John.Ager@ncleg.net; Rob.Bryan@ncleg.net; George.Cleveland@ncleg.net; Jimmy.Dixon@ncleg.net; Jean.Farmer-Butterfield@ncleg.net; Susan.Fisher@ncleg.net; Jon.Hardister@ncleg.net; Pat.Hurley@ncleg.net; Frank.Iler@ncleg.net; Bert.Jones@ncleg.net; Donny.Lambeth@ncleg.net; James.Langdon@ncleg.net; Paul.Luebke@ncleg.net; Chris.Malone@ncleg.net; Graig.Meyer@ncleg.net; Larry.Pittman@ncleg.net; Bobbie.Richardson@ncleg.net; William.Richardson@ncleg.net; Dennis.Riddell@ncleg.net; Paul.Stam@ncleg.net; Rena.Turner@ncleg.net; Chris.Whitmire@ncleg.net
SUBJECT: Stop the Achievement School District Bill
Dear Elected Leaders,
It has been brought to my attention that a bill creating an Achievement School District is being reviewed and will be voted on tomorrow in committee. This bill is detrimental as it sets up a statewide-district that will be operated and managed by private companies.
This model has not been successful in Tennessee where a similar system was mandated in 2012. This bill takes away control of local schools. After only two years of an arbitrary statewide grading system this has not given our school leadership the time to make changes and prove growth.
I ask you to please kill this bill in committee. North Carolina does not need this educational experiment. They need support and don’t need to be passed off to outside for-profit management companies. This bill would weaken our recovering real estate market, adversely impact economic development, and create division within our local communities.
Regards,
Citizen name
City/Town