John Dornan, president/executive director of the Public School Forum of North Carolina, moderated today’s one-hour debate on education.
The debate featured opening and closing statements and 21 questions, six of which were yes/no questions.
Lt. Governor Perdue mentioned vouchers less than I thought she would. In her opening statement, she said ?vouchers take us backwards,” and she essentially said the same thing in her closing statement. Question four addressed the voucher issue and McCrory made it clear that he supported the selected use of vouchers for special needs students only. I had a difficult time following Perdue’s response, but I think she attempted to accuse McCrory of inconsistency on the issue.
Interestingly, Perdue attempted to channel Obama. She mentioned the “American dream” four times and she made statements like “[education gives people the] capacity to dream and fight for success.? She said that she would get out into the community and talk to parents and teachers. She championed the use of technology for our ?Brave new world that is flat.? She also used educrat catchphrases like “diagnostic assessment,” “rigor and relevance,” and “paradigms” a few times, but never quite defined those terms.
McCrory argued for more vocational education and meeting the current needs of the workforce. (In contrast, Perdue argued that we will not know what kinds of skills our future workforce will need.) McCrory talked about local flexibility and parental choice through raising the charter school cap. McCrory wants to evaluate programs (Learn and Earn; More at Four; Smart Start) before we expand them, while Perdue was ready to pony up the bucks. McCrory wisely linked Perdue to the status quo, or what he called the “culture of closed government.”
I have a beef with one of Dornan’s questions, namely question three on the idea to increase the 180-day school year to 200+ days. This is not an issue to anyone but Dornan, and it had no business being a question in the debate. Anyway, Perdue responded that the time allotted must be done “in a rigorous and relevant way.” McCrory echoed the theme of local flexibility.
