Point of View: The BEST NC Blog

Informing and engaging the business voice in North Carolina.

BEST NC Releases Comprehensive Teacher Pay Report

BEST NC Releases Comprehensive Teacher Pay Report In 2023, BEST NC released a new report on teacher pay entitled Teacher Pay in North Carolina: A Smart Investment in Student Achievement. The BEST NC team, along with leading economists and...

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2022 Spotlight On Series: Federal COVID Relief Funding for North Carolina Schools Since March 2020, the United States government has provided nearly $337 billion in pandemic-related aid to be used to support the education of students across the country...

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BEST NC Launches Updated Per Pupil Expenditure Data Explorer Tool (2018-19 to 2020-21) BEST NC is pleased to announce the update of its Per Pupil Expenditure (PPE) Data Explorer and landing page, designed to facilitate the understanding and...

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2022 Spotlight On Series: Student Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT BEFORE AND AFTER THE PANDEMIC In March 2020, education in North Carolina changed dramatically as schools across the state were temporarily closed and then moved to remote...

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2022 Spotlight On Series: Enrollment and Attendance During the COVID-19 Pandemic ENROLLMENT The percentage of North Carolina’s school-aged children attending traditional public schools has declined over the last 15 years, from 88% in 2005-06 to 79% in 2019-20. Meanwhile...

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2022 Spotlight On Series: Students with Disabilities in North Carolina The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) guarantees students with disabilities a free and appropriate public education, guided by an individualized education program developed by educators in partnership with...

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BEST NC Launches North Carolina School-Level Per Pupil Expenditure (PPE) Data Summaries and Interactive Tool BEST NC is pleased to announce the launch of a new Per Pupil Expenditure (PPE) interactive tool and landing page designed to facilitate the understanding and...

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Spotlight On: Rural Students in North Carolina (Updated for 2021) North Carolina has the second largest rural student population in the United States (after Texas), with 524,955 rural students in 2018-19, 36% of all K-12 students. Eighty of...

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Spotlight On: National Board-Certified Teachers (Updated for 2021) The National Board Certification process, offered by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, recognizes high-quality teaching. The certification process uses rigorous standards to evaluate teaching practice through performance-based assessments. Correlational...

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Spotlight On: Career and College Promise (Updated for 2021) In 2019-20, 70,801 public high school students participated in the Career and College Promise (CCP) program, which offers qualified high school students the opportunity to enroll in community college and...

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Spotlight On:  per Pupil Expenditures  (PPE) (Updated for 2021) More than $13 billion dollars was spent on K-12 traditional public education in North Carolina in the 2018-19 school year, including funding from local, state, and federal sources. Beginning in...

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Spotlight On: myFutureNC (Updated for 2021) Throughout the 2020 edition of Facts & Figures, the myFutureNC icon indicates key education performance measures directly tied to North Carolina’s education-to-workforce continuum and the state goal of increasing educational attainment to 2...

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Announcing TeachNC: The One-Stop Resource for Becoming a Teacher in North Carolina We are thrilled to share that, for the first time ever, North Carolina has a unified, statewide teacher recruitment initiative that elevates the teaching profession and...

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2019 Legislative Gathering

A core principle guiding BEST NC’s work is the idea that well-informed conversations can lead to real, meaningful change in the lives of North Carolina’s students and educators. It’s why we produce Facts & Figures, the most comprehensive guide to education data in the state. It’s...

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Spotlight On: Advanced Teaching Roles Initiative

Spotlight On: Advanced Teaching Roles Initiative In 2016, North Carolina created the Advanced Teaching Roles Initiative. This legislation establishes a school leadership re-design model that empowers districts and educators to design new teaching roles that provide advancement...

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Spotlight On: Teacher Pay Trends The statewide teacher salary schedule is established in the state budget. The following charts show two major phases in the teacher pay schedules over the last ten years: pay freezes from 2009 to 2014,...

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NC First in Teaching Roadmap

  First in Freedom. First in Flight. Why shouldn’t North Carolina be First in Teaching, too? In 2018, more than 70 current and former educators from across North Carolina came together, sharing their stories, experiences, and ideas with the goal...

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BEST NC’s Response to Principal Preparation Consolidation (SB469)

We are grateful to the State of North Carolina for investing in two distinct, innovative principal preparation programs over the last four years. The timing is right to take the best practices from each of these outstanding programs and...

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Growth and Achievement in North Carolina

Growth and Achievement: you have probably heard these terms in conversations about education. But what are they? How do they differ, and what do they tell us about North Carolina’s students and teachers? Our new video “Growth and Achievement...

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North Carolina Teachers and State Employee Retirement System and Health Benefits

Note: This blog post features a brief from page 26 of our 2018 Facts & Figures publication, contextualizing North Carolina education data with a short description of an historical feature or a critical issue in North Carolina. Read more and...

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