Higher education is the object of aspiration and frustration. A lofty aim that, while promising opportunity, evokes feelings of anxiety from throngs of students neither academically nor financially secure. Commissions, boards, and committees spend hours deliberating on the subject. Politicos pontificate about gaps in student achievement. Newspapers and magazines publish story after story detailing the...
Before he became a household name in one of the most significant Supreme Court victories for public employees’ First Amendment rights in decades, Mark Janus was warned by his worried mother about taking on powerful union forces. “Oh, Mark, you know what they did to Jimmy Hoffa,” Janus recalls his mother telling him. Hoffa was...
Making money available for mental health programs and including students in conversations about school safety are among the recommendations in a report from the N.C. Governor’s Crime Commission Special Committee on School Shootings. The committee on Thursday, Feb. 7 presented the report to Gov. Roy Cooper. “When parents send their kids to school they expect them...
The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill will have a new chancellor, at least for a few months. Kevin Guskiewicz, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill, was named new interim chancellor Wednesday, Feb. 6. Guskiewicz will fill the temporary position after former UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt officially departed Jan. 31....
State education leaders are promoting career paths that don’t involve attending four-year universities. State Superintendent Mark Johnson and N.C. Community College System President Peter Hans announced February Career Pathways Month. In a news conference Monday, Feb. 4, Johnson and Hans spoke about the importance of pursuing alternative paths to careers to fill the demand in...
A new debt affordability study for North Carolina could throw cold water on plans by the House and Gov. Roy Cooper to pass a nearly $2 billion bond for public school construction. The Senate said the study at least indirectly justified its alternative proposal to fund K-12 building with a pay-as-you-go plan which also would apply to...
More foreign-born doctors educated in the U.S. are seeking visa waivers to practice medicine in North Carolina. But health care professionals say federal rules must be changed to help plug physician gaps in medically underserved areas of the state. That was among topics discussed Friday at the first of six public meetings the N.C. Department...
The state panel that determines how much money North Carolina can prudently borrow over the next 10 years rejected an appeal Wednesday by Gov. Roy Cooper’s budget director to triple the state’s debt ceiling from $2.03 billion to more than $6 billion. The 6-3 vote of the Debt Affordability Advisory Committee approved a study that...
An after-action report on the toppling of Silent Sam reveals “serious deficiencies” in how UNC-Chapel Hill law enforcement handled the situation. The UNC Board of Governors voted to make the report public Jan 15 and disclosed it the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 1. The UNC-Chapel Hill police department and the university administration have been criticized...
A Senate plan to pump $2.03 billion of tax revenue into K-12 public school construction would both outspend a competing House plan and do so with cash rather than debt, Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, R-Onslow, said Wednesday. Brown, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Senate Bill 5, Building North Carolina’s Future, is a...
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include additional comments. Much of the controversy surrounding Silent Sam can be traced to a 2015 law protecting historical monuments from removal or relocation without official approval. Some Democratic lawmakers aim to resolve the controversy by heading straight to the source. Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford; Rep. Evelyn...
