The Wake County school system, along with the rest of the state's public schools, will deal with the state Senate's latest proposal to remake the education system.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger introduced today S361, a modified version of the Excellent Public Schools Act that was only partially implemented last year. Among the many elements of the new bill would be ending teacher tenure, setting up the criteria for the new A through F grading system for each school, a restatement of the desire for teacher merit pay and narrowing of when state tests can be given.

Click here to compare to last year's version.

The education reform package passed last year by the state legislature drew plenty of red flags at Thursday's Wake County school board student achievement committee meeting.

As noted in today's article, school board members said that issuing an A through F grade for every school will humiliate schools and won’t have much value. School leaders also say now requiring districts to hold summer reading camps for third-grade students who fail the state reading exam is an unfunded mandate.

“We are charged to make sure we have the best education system for our students and teachers," said school board member Jim Martin. "If something is coming down the track that doesn’t help students and teachers, then we have the obligation to get off the track before the train hits us.”

Senate leader Phil Berger, one of the state's leading Republicans, says Gov. Bev Perdue should follow her own rules in choosing a replacement for outgoing state Supreme Court justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson.

A spokeswoman for Perdue, a Democrat, has indicated that Perdue intends to make the choice, meaning that it is unlikely a judicial nominating commission she created would be used as part of the decision. That commission was created to remove politics from judicial appointment decisions.

Berger blasted the idea that Perdue will not follow her own process in the waning days of her administration.

Berger's full statement, through a spokeswoman:

"Gov. Perdue made a binding commitment to the people of the state about how she would select judicial appointees. If she fails to follow her own rules and makes an 11th hour appointment, then it's one more example of the rank hypocrisy soiling her legacy. Gov. Perdue has not earned, nor does she have, the state's trust to make this type of decision."

Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata gave hopeful messages today about the state budget and the magnet school review during his news conference.

Tata said Wake has been "working very hard" with the General Assembly on the budget. Tata said he's hopeful of what he believes will be a good budget discussion over the next several weeks with legislators to hopefully lessen the impact of lost federal stimulus funds.

Tata said he's been talking to state legislators since January to articulate the school district's budget needs.

This morning we had a story in the paper by Lynn Bonner about Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger's plan to overhaul K-12 education. It occured to me that many folks might wonder why a state senator is involved in figuring out how to make sure kids are reading at grade level, and whether they should get promoted or, as we used to say, left back.

The fact is that public education has many masters, from the state legislature, to the State Board of Education and the state superintendent of public instruction. Don't forget the federal Department of Education, which sees the instruction of youngsters as crucial to our global economic and military competitiveness, and thus sees local education as a matter for Washington. Somewhere in there are the local school boards and superindentents. These are the folks that most citizens at the local level hold accountable for the performance of their kids' schools, but as you can see, it's not that simple.

The General Assembly got very involved in setting education policy during the Great Depression, when many localities were flat broke and unable to pay for decent schools. Today, the state pays for 60 percent of education spending. Public school spending makes up 40 percent of the state budget. So according to the Golden Rule ("He who has the gold, makes the rules"), the legislature feels entitled to get deep into how schools are run because it sends $7.4 billion to the districts annually. So you had the legislature last year getting into how many teacher assistants schools should have.

There are some who believe that K-12 education would be better off if all decisions were made at the local level, along with the mechanisms for funding them. Every school district would be free to experiment with their own curricula. They could test or not test, decide how many days kids should be in school, and set their own requirements for teacher credentials. Heck, they could decide whether or not they wanted to have public schools, or just let the private sector provide.

To do that, there would have to be a fundamental shift in public finance.  The states would have to give back a big chunk of their taxing power - i.e., the income tax and sales tax - because the locals would need more than property taxes to pick up the slack.

It sure would be interesting. A certain amount of the current system involves sending tax dollars to Raleigh and Washington where bureaucrats and politicians then redistribute them back down to the counties without, it could be argued, adding a significant amount of value in the process, but certainly adding a lot of rules and regulations about how the classroom teacher should teach.

It is entirely understandable that Phil Berger feels an obligation to get deeply involved in how the classrooms should operate and casts a skeptical eye on the way education has been run so far, because, for now, he and his colleagues in the legislature are having to pick up most of the tab.   Maybe it would be a good idea to revisit this 80-year-old system, but until that happens, you're going to have the legislature as a super school board.

Efforts to reduce or expand the amount of public information from state and local personnel records aren't likely to succeed as the legislative session comes to a close.

Ray Martin, a spokesman for Senate leader Phil Berger, a Rockingham County Republican, said the personnel law legislation "likely won't be resuscitated now, at least before we adjourn."

Two bills -- one in the House; the other in the Senate -- would have expanded the public personnel information to include explanations of disciplinary actions and employee performance. They also included penalties for government officials who denied records that were clearly public. The bills were supported by the N.C. Press Association, of which we are a member.

The other bill would have prevented the release of salary histories before Oct. 1, 2007, as well as any dismissal letters or the reporting of dismissals, suspensions or demotions for disciplinary reasons prior to Oct. 1, 2010. It also would have allowed governments to not have to write dismissal letters for employees such as sheriff's deputies who can be fired at will without explanation.

That bill, filed by state Sen. Pete Brunstetter, a Winston-Salem Republican, came at the behest of representatives for county commissioners, sheriffs and school boards.

None of the bills made it out of committee.

While the two bills expanding personnel information appeared dead earlier this month after Crossover Week -- the legislature's self-imposed deadline for passing legislation out of either chamber -- Brunstetter's bill appeared on the Senate Finance Committee's agenda at least twice this week, only to be removed before being heard.

On Tuesday, state Sen. Fletcher Hartsell, a Concord Republican, said Brunstetter's bill was not likely to be heard by his committee.

Last year, state lawmakers expanded the amount of personnel information that should be public, including full salary histories and each suspension, demotion and promotion. Suspensions, demotions and dismissals for disciplinary reasons have to be identified.

Governments also have to release dismissal letters created before the law's start date, and must now produce dismissal letters that explain why an employee was fired. Those letters are also public.

The changes followed a three-part series we did, Keeping Secrets, that showed North Carolina had one of the most secretive personnel laws in the nation.

The legislature's new Republican majority has made its first move to put an imprint on the UNC system. On Thursday, the Senate appointed eight new members to the UNC system's Board of Governors.

The eight new appointees don't signal a dramatic shift, in that four are either re-appointed current or former board members. But taken collectively, they are seven white men and one white woman; meanwhile, the board stands to lose four African-Americans and at least five women once all appointments are made.

The House appoints eight additional new members next week.

Here's today's story.

Reappointed to the UNC Board of Governors were long-time education advocate Ann Goodnight, wife of SAS Institute CEO Jim Goodnight, and Peter Hans, a senior policy adviser with the Nelson Mullins law firm in Raleigh.

Former board members H. Frank Grainger of Cary and John Fennebresque of Charlotte also were appointed. Grainger is part-owner of Fair Products Inc. and Tritest Environmental Lab, and Fennebresque is an attorney.

The four newcomers were Fred Eshelman of Wilmington, executive chairman and founder of Pharmaceutical Product Development Corp.; W. Louis Bissette Jr., an attorney from Asheville; Thomas Harrelson of Southport, vice president of AECOM, a former state legislator and DOT secretary appointed by Republican Gov. Jim Martin; and Phillip Walker, senior vice president with BB&T in Hickory.

Market forces will push North Carolina's record-high gas tax even higher in July --  unless political forces decide otherwise. 

Democrats were in charge four years ago when drivers were unhappy about rising gas taxes, so they capped the tax for two years at 29.9 cents a gallon.  That ceiling was converted to a legislative floor in 2009, and our inflation-adjusting tax has risen since then to an all-time high of 32.5 cents.

The General Assembly’s new Republican leaders seem likely to put a lid on it again.

“They have not specifically talked about this in caucus,” says Ray Martin, press secretary for Republican Sen. Phil Berger, the Senate president pro tem. “But it’s likely they’d want to look at capping any increase in the tax.” ... [MORE]

North Carolina's business lobby kicked off this year's legislative session with an ambitious to-do list in a Republican-controlled statehouse.

The N.C. Chamber feted its members Tuesday at the N.C. Museum of History in downtown Raleigh with speakers, legislators and hors d' oeuvres.

The group hopes to achieve goals that were out-of-reach in past years when Democrats controlled both houses of the General Assembly.

"It's a new era," said Lew Ebert, the chamber's president and CEO. Ebert said the chamber will be pushing for a pro-growth, pro-jobs agenda.

Sen. Phil Berger, who will be elected President Pro Tem of the state Senate when the legislature convenes Jan. 26, has been added to the line up of Monday's Economic Forecast Forum at the Sheraton Imperial and Convention Center in the Research Triangle Park.  

Berger will share his perspective on the economy and quite probably discuss what the state's new Republican-controlled legislature plans to do about the state's $3.7 billion budget shortfall.

The annual event is coordinated by the North Carolina Bankers Association and the North Carolina Chamber. About 1,100 business leaders from across the state are expected to attend.
 
Other speakers include Erskine Bowles, outgoing president of the University of North Carolina system and co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility, and Mark Vitner, senior economist of Wells Fargo Securities.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr was scheduled but ran into a scheduling conflict and had to bow out.

Registration information can be found here.  For more information about the Economic Forecast Forum, contact Christy Santacana at the NC Bankers Association at christy@ncbankers.org or 1-800-662-7044.