Our Terry Stoops offers his perspective to News & Observer reporter Keung Hui about a new report on improving K-12 education in the South.
To improve education, the report found that states need to get the South’s finest to become teachers, give students the support they need, strengthen students’ ability to go to college or get a job after high school and match resources with students’ needs.
First, Terry discusses the report itself.
The report provides common ground across the political spectrum on issues such as improving teacher recruitment efforts and looking at how schools are funded and how money is spent, according to Terry Stoops, vice president of research for the John Locke Foundation.
“This is a report that those on the left and the right will be receptive to,” he said.
What’s NOT in the report? Stoops told the N&O there are a number of things the report didn’t cover.
Stoops of the Locke Foundation said he wished the report had included information about how any reform efforts will be challenged by the need to pay for unfunded pension liabilities and rising health insurance costs.
Stoops said he also wished the report had talked about how charter schools can help with efforts to raise student achievement. Charter schools are taxpayer-funded public schools that are exempt from some of the regulations that traditional public schools must follow.
“There really is a role for the charter schools in moving education in the South forward,” Stoops said.
