https://www.facebook.com/992510014206533/

EduGram, Charlotte, NC (2026)

07/11/2024

EduGram Thoughts of the Week:

Back in August of 2023, the North Carolina General Assembly overrode Gov. Cooper's veto of Senate Bill 49 (Parents' Bill of Rights), which made that legislation the new law in North Carolina.

Now before anyone starts “rallying their troops” about the intended purposes of that legislation and its impact on schools across the Old North State, let me put to rest any worries. Today's soap box dissertation will not focus on the stated intent of the legislation, nor the implied intent. The folks here at EduGram Tech & Liberal Arts have no opinion on those matters.

However, for the sake of public education, we do have some thoughts about the unintended consequences of this legislation – specifically the opt-in and opt-out rules. Let me dig in.

In the early 20th century, American sociologist Robert Merton popularized the concept of unintended consequences in social sciences. This concept tells us that there are purposeful actions that cause unintended or unforeseen consequences.

Richard Schickel, the famed American film historian, journalist, author, and documentarian, once said, "The law of unintended consequences pushes us ceaselessly through the years, permitting no pause for perspective."

As a I read that quote this week, I started to think about the Parents' Bill of Rights and whether or not we should pause for perspective. Because if there will never be agreement on the intended outcomes of that legislation, I have become cautiously optimistic that maybe such a perspective pause will allow the North Carolina General Assembly to fix one of the obvious unintended outcomes this bill has demonstrably created.

Specifically, I'm speaking about the change in the opt-in versus opt-out rules for dental, hearing, and vision screenings that Senate Bill 49 mandated.

Under this new legislation, no student in a public school may have any of these screenings unless a parent opts-in to them. This is a significant change for the longstanding rule on these screenings which allowed parents to opt-out of them.

Vision screenings in schools started in 1899. Yes, you read that correctly, 1899... not 1999... not 1965, but rather vision screenings have been a part of public schools for over 125 years. Hearing screenings started in 1957, some 67 years ago. Dental screenings started back in 1975 by act of the North Carolina General Assembly.

The point here being that these screenings are not new. Virtually everyone reading this monologue participated in all three of these screenings as a child at their school. And throughout all the years and years of administering these screenings, not one child was ever indoctrinated into some group or class of people who the current majority of the General Assembly in our state deem a threat to our children.

The impact of this action by the General Assembly has had dramatic effect in its first year of implementation here in Mecklenburg County. Visions screenings declined 65% among CMS students, from 37,816 students in the 2022-2023 school year to just 13,214 this year. Dental screenings declined 82%, from 20,253 to 3,624 over the same two-year period. Hearing screenings declined in a similar fashion.

People could say, “You see, parents want the ability to opt in! And they are telling us they don’t want to opt in by simply not doing so.” I don’t know about you, but as a parent of school aged children, I am so busy, I can barely keep up with basics like “When is soccer this weekend?” Now this legislation asks today’s parents -- even more overwhelmed with information from all directions -- to click a box that they are too busy to know they have to click for their kids to get essential screenings.

All of this begs the obvious question... what possible benefit to our students and their parents have we provided them by putting in place a rule that lessens the likelihood they will become aware that the reason they are struggling to learn is because they can't see the board, or can't hear the teacher? Is this really helping parents? Is this really helping student outcomes and ensuring students are reading on grade level by 3rd grade? Are we really concerned that parents finding out their child may need glasses or hearing aids is going to cause some societal program that changes the fabric of America? Cause if that's true, it would've already happened.

The simple fact remains that these screenings are not in any way tied to the publicly stated intent of SB 49. Our children and their parents shouldn't miss out on the chance to discover something that may help their child succeed in school. Heck, I started wearing glasses in 3rd grade because of a vision screening I had. I've worn glasses every day since, and my parents will tell you the difference in my grades from 3rd to 4th grade was significant. All because somebody in Gwinnett County Schools gave my class a vision screening and then informed my parents that they probably should get my eyes checked.

It's time the North Carolina General Assembly either fix this oversight from SB 49, or publicly admit they don't care if school kids can hear or see in class. Because if you want better outcomes in our public schools, taking away tools to helps students succeed makes me wonder if they actually want all students to succeed.

If the General Assembly truly believes what it continues to shout from the rooftops about their desire to ensure student success, then it's time to put action behind words.

It's time to allow vision, dental, and hearings screenings to go back to the opt-out rule, so we don't lose another year helping tens of thousands of students across the state identify a barrier to learning that is easily fixed and has been around for longer than most of us have been alive.

To the members of the General Assembly, I beg you to fix this. Our kids are counting on you. Don't let them down.

05/02/2024

EduGram Thoughts of the Week:

Pop quiz: What do Ellen DeGeneres, the 2007 Opt Out of Iraq War Act, and NCGA legislation HB823 all have in common?

Ellen DeGeneres is a comedian who hosted a popular daytime television talk show. She's a vegan who supports Meatless Mondays and gave $25,000 to oppose the Ag-Gag whistleblower legislation (designed to silence whistleblowers who report cruelty to farm animals) in Tennessee. When asked what her first executive order as president of the United States would be, Ellen DeGeneres advocated a mix of voluntary taxation and tax choice, saying "You should get to choose where your money goes instead of giving it and just letting them decide; I think you should decide."

The 2007 Opt Out of Iraq Act was legislation filed by Rep. Nydia Velázquez that would've allowed taxpayers to deduct their tax portion of funds necessary for the Iraq War and direct them to social programs instead. So, if you didn't want your tax dollars going towards our military, then you could single-handedly decide your money” shall be used to provide funding for Head Start, to reduce the national debt, and to provide college funding for children of Iraq war veterans.” An interesting anti-collective government stance from someone who as of December 2022 had voted with Joe Biden's stated position on issues 100% of the time.

Of course, most readers of the EduGram will know that HB823 is the latest school-voucher bill moving through the North Carolina General Assembly. This bill take away the last vestiges of the promises made when Opportunity Scholarships came to fruition – those assurances that the program was only for less fortunate families to have access to private schools just like rich families do. However, this latest school-voucher bill isn't for those families struggling to make ends meet. You see the families at the lower end of the economic scales are already fully funded with existing dollars. This new funding of about $463 million only serves to allow the wealthiest of North Carolinians to access these funds, including students who have been in private schools their entire educational career but just found out the NCGA is handing out free money.

Still no clue of how these three items fit together? Okay, here’s the common thread: All three things subscribe to the economic theory known as public choice theory or taxpayer sovereignty. This economic/tax theory states individual taxpayers should be able to direct where their tax dollars are spent. It sounds reasonable on its face. Heck, a friend of mine on Twitter this week even offered that, "All residents of NC pay state taxes which fund our public education system. If a parent decides they want to send their kid elsewhere, why should they not get their fair share of the pot they paid into?" Think about it. I earned that money, I paid it (via taxes) to the government, now I want it back to spend on the things I want to spend it on.

So Dr. EduGram, what's so bad about the public choice theory? Well, I'll answer that question with another question: If it's so good for education, why wouldn't be good for other government expenditures?

Going to my friend's question, he paid in the money and now he wants it back to send his kid to charter school. Can I do that with my gas tax? I mean, I pay all that gas tax every year and I still have potholes in my town. Give everyone in my neighborhood our gas tax money and I promise you our roads will all get an A on their School Performance Grades. Now, we don't actually measure private schools, er, roads, so we'll never know what score they actually get, but I'm pretty sure it's got to be an A. It's a private school, er road, after all. I mean, aren't my public roads with potholes "failing" anyway? Don't I deserve my gas tax back so I can fix them?

What about disaster relief funding? I don't live anywhere near a disaster area. Can I get my tax dollars back from that fund and spend them on watershed issues around my town just in case Laker Norman floods someday? I mean, I know it looks safe from I-77 but if those dams burst one day, I'm going to need to let my tax dollars follow the dams I want to build. Perhaps that dam used to work for us, but society is changing and it's time for me to spend my tax dollars on the dam in front of my neighborhood. I'm sure the folks in actual disaster areas will understand. I mean, all residents of NC pay state taxes which go to our State Emergency and Disaster Response Fund. If residents decide they want to build their own disaster-prevention system, why should they not get their fair share of the pot they paid into?

I realize I'm not changing a lot of minds right now. But I'd ask you to think about what we've said here. The NCGA would never dream of allowing highway funds to be spent by each individual taxpayer. The NCGA would never dream of letting those disaster funds to be spent on a per-person basis for whatever their individual needs might be. But for some reason, in some states, and now in North Carolina, taking education money and handing it to an individual taxpayer is being advocated as exactly the potion we need to solve our ills.

In North Carolina, we have a teacher vacancy crisis with more than 5,500 classrooms across our state without a full-time teacher in them. That's a 5.9% shortage of needed teachers for our traditional public-school students. 10% of our teachers left the profession last year alone. Further depleting the funds necessary to train, hire, and retain teachers by throwing money at private schools will only make this worse. Just using these additional dollars and nothing else, the NCGA could instead give all teachers an additional 3.4% pay increase.

HB 823 only serves one purpose... to ensure the children of Jeff Bezos, Alice Walton, and James Goodnight (the wealthiest of the wealthy) qualify for a public subsidy for a private school. A real riches-to-riches story, if you will.

Don't give any more money to schools that aren't required to have the same School Performance scores and grades applied to them as the 115 LEAs and the hundreds of charter schools do. Don't give more money to those wealthiest among us to the detriment of the people... all based on an economic theory that only Ellen DeGeneres could love.

02/29/2024

EduGram Thoughts of the Week:

Okay... where was I?

This coming Tuesday, North Carolina will hold the primary elections for the 2024 election cycle. And as typical during even numbered year primaries, there are probably more competitive races and uncertain outcomes next week on March 5th than we'll have in the general election on November 5th. So when polls close at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, candidates and elections watchers across the state will quickly go to the state Board of Elections website to start getting results.

For as long as I can remember, that has meant that around 7:35 p.m. or so, the Board of Elections released all the early voting calculations. While this is usually just about 30% of the total votes cast, it gave everyone a quick snapshot of how the elections were trending and where we may end up at the conclusion of counting all the votes. It wasn’t a guarantee that whoever was leading after early voting results were posted would be the winner, but often, it gave a pretty good insight to how certain races would pan out.

However, that won't happen this year. This year, we'll have to wait hours before the first results are tallied and shared with the public. Our own little statewide version of Schrödinger's cat where the votes are in and there is a winner, but until we lift the metaphorical box to count and release the results, candidates across the state will believe they are both winners and losers at the same time. A process like putting a radioactive atom in a box and then guessing whether the candidate, err, cat, is alive or dead.

In preparation of this significant change in how we count votes on election day, Karen Brinson Bell, the Executive Director of the State Board of Elections, released the following statement this week, "Those who watch election results in North Carolina have come to expect a large chunk of results very soon after polls close. That will not happen this year, although the State Board and county boards of elections remain committed to providing unofficial results as quickly as possible. We ask for patience from voters and candidates as election officials comply with changes to election laws that affect election night processes.”

Now, I know what y'all are thinking... why is this changing? Well, it's changing because a state law passed on October 10, 2023 when the Governor's veto of SB 747 was overridden by the state House and state Senate. In Section 29 of that bill (page 18 for those looking it up to fact check me), it says that NCGS 163-182.2 shall be rewritten to:

§ 163-182.2. Initial counting of official ballots. (a) The initial counting of official ballots cast on election day and under Part 5 of Article 14A of this Chapter shall be conducted according to the following principles: (1) Vote counting of ballots cast at the precinct on election day shall occur immediately after the polls close and shall be continuous until completed. If ballots cast under Part 5 of Article 14A of this Chapter are counted electronically, that count shall commence at the time the polls close. If ballots cast under Part 5 of Article 14A of this Chapter are paper ballots counted manually, that count shall commence at the same time as mail-in absentee ballots cast under Article 20 or Article 21A of this Chapter are counted."

Now, for those new to reading legislation, the language underlined above is the new language added to the statute. That is the change in state law regarding the counting of early voting ballots that go into effect beginning with the 2024 elections. This language change prohibits the State Board of Elections from starting to count early voting ballots until after the polls close at 7:30 p.m. Prior to this legislative change, the count of early votes could start earlier in the day on election day so it could be completed prior to polls closing. So, the multi-hour-long process of counting early votes from across the state now cannot even begin until 7:30 p.m. So, instead of getting results around 7:35 p.m., we may not get any results until 10:00 p.m. or later-- a seismic change for elections watchers across the Old North State.

I offer these thoughts this week for two reasons... 1) This will be new to everyone in North Carolina, and 2) Because once Brinson Bell released her statement this week, folks went straight to social media to start accusing the State Board of Elections and others of cheating. One person on X even posted that the Board of Elections was, "announcing their cheat right out in the open". This started a long thread of replies, including one person who asked if the "NC GOP would sue the Board of Elections for this delay in vote counting". Other comments included "We knew it was coming. Cheating is all they know" and "So they can figure out how many more ballots they need to cheat to win".

Look, I'm all for a good conspiracy theory, but accusing the State Board of Elections of cheating because they are abiding by a law passed by the GOP-controlled House and Senate is a bridge too far. If people believe there is fraud in our electoral process (as always, the folks here at EduGram Tech don't offer any opinion one way or another on that issue), then running around on social media making demonstrably false claims does nothing but diminish your credibility if you ever did happen to find a legitimate case of election fraud. Much like when the boy cried wolf, if one of these online conspiracy theorists does see a wolf running towards sheep one day, no one will come to help them. If you want credibility in accusations of election fraud, don't start by making accusations that a simple Google search can indisputably prove false.

When people start posting on social media, texting their friends, or calling into radio shows on Tuesday night using the delay in election results as proof that somehow the North Carolina State Board of Elections is somehow cheating to help one party over another, please do us all a favor and ignore them.

Or better yet... let them know that this change has nothing to do with the State Board of Elections. Rather, it's from legislation that was voted on twice (once to pass and another to override the Governor's veto) by every Republican casting a vote.

I’m hopeful for Tuesday’s election, but I am also afraid some folks are following that old adage, don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.

09/01/2023

EduGram Thoughts of the Week:

“By the time we hit 50, we have learned our hardest lessons. We have found out that only a few things are really important. We have learned to take life seriously, but never ourselves.” — Marie Dressler

Well, this week it happened. Dr. EduGram turned 50.

For those of you who know me, you know I'm not a very sentimental person and I don't get caught up too much with these milestones. Mostly because these milestones are nothing more than a moment in time. There's nothing special about turning 50 versus 49 or 51 but I'll admit it does somehow feel different. Somehow, I had the urge to take stock of my life. Where I've been. Where I am. Where I'm going. I was surprised by my feelings of nostalgia and reflection, as those are two things I try at all costs to avoid. But nonetheless, I found myself looking back on my life and seeing if I've provided value.

A couple of years before my mom passed, she was enshrined in the Tennis Hall of Fame. This was quite an honor for her, especially since she really wasn't that good at tennis. My whole family went to the induction ceremony and basked in this monumental moment., Mom had spent years running tennis tournaments across the United States and she was being recognized for her efforts. She gave a speech that frankly I didn't really react to at the time. However, as I lay in bed on the night before my 50th birthday, I thought back to my mom's speech that day. She talked about the dash on gravestones -- that dash that separates the year of our birth from the year of our passing. I could hear her saying, "It was what we did with that dash that matters."

I don't know why that popped up in my head, but it did and it caused me to do some internal calculations. What would people say about my dash? More importantly, what would my wife, my kids, my family, and my friends say about my dash? Would they think I've provided value, or would they think I merely passed through life? So, I lay there in the dark for hours thinking about my life -- the good, the bad, and the ugly.

My life hasn't turned out the way I expected as a child or even as a student at Faber College getting my PhD. I expected to be a musician playing all around the world. My band released an album and we were going to be the next big thing. This was going to be my future. These songs that Bill Rhodes and I had written were finally recorded for all to hear. Of course, it turned out no one really wanted to listen to them. And my career as a musician was over. Had those songs provided any value? Next on my list was to start a company. I ended up starting three over the next few years. Two of them went bankrupt and the third one (The Lake Norman Citizen newspapers) I sold shortly after starting it, and it does still exist. Apparently successful businessperson wasn't going to be my path either. How about politics? Maybe I can make a difference there. Well I won 10 elections over a 16-year period, but could I point to something I did in those 16 years that created value? But, even if it did provide value, I had to give up politics due to my less-than-stellar business career. I found myself as a 43-year-old former elected official, with a string of business failures in my wake. What could I possibly do now that would provide any value to anybody, or at least any value to the ones around me?

At that point in my life, things changed for me. Despite my mistakes, I found a new home. Not a home in the sense of a place to live, but rather a home where I could provide value through work. That home was Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. CMS is a district that is far better than it ever gets credit for and one that transforms the lives of students, parents, teachers, and our entire community for the better.

For the last seven years I have had the honor and privilege to work on behalf over hundreds of thousands of students and tens of thousands of employees. I had a front-row seat to the challenges of COVID and dealing with remote learning, masks, and countless other obstacles. I've watched as Board members, central-office staff, and school-based staff did everything they could to make the absolute best of terrible conditions brought on by the pandemic. I've watched as a teacher connected with a student so effectively that you could almost see that proverbial light bulb go off above the student’s head. And I've watched as my own daughter's life was changed by CMS programs at Northwest School for the Arts, a unique school in our state. As I continued to ponder these things, it occurred to me that the less I made it about me, the more value I created. I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to be a business owner. I wanted to be an elected official. It wasn't until I failed at some of those things and decided to do something for others that I think I've actually created value.

One of my colleagues walked into my office one day and saw that I had my high school diploma framed on my wall. She asked why I had my high school diploma up and not my college degree. I explained that I had come to realize that my lot in life is doing whatever I can to help kids earn their high school diploma, that any value I can provide would be tied to how successful we can be as a team to ensure the thousands of students that leave CMS every year do so with a high school diploma.

I also realized that no matter how much I do, or try to do, ultimately, I am but a very small part in a collective that works so hard on behalf of our community. I remain in awe of our teachers, bus drivers, custodians, and other staff who work so much harder than I do every day as they assist these students in our unified goal to educate them and ultimately to earn that high school diploma. Those folks are doing hard work on the front lines every day. They do it with little pay, with little praise, and with rarely so much as a thank you. So while I still sometimes struggle with my value, I felt a great sense of comfort thinking about the teachers, the bus drivers, the teacher assistants, the cafeteria staff, the principals, the coaches, the guidance counselors, and the countless other CMS employees who get up every day. Not for fame, not for money, but because of their motivation and their value to our students is critical.

Maybe my dash will have meaning and value. Maybe being on the same team as these public-school employees is what I was made to do. Maybe my mom is looking down on me, proud of my self-reflection and my realization that doing something that is bigger than your own personal ambition is what truly provides value. Maybe when I retire in ten years, I will have had a positive influence on the lives of our students, faculty, and staff. The less seriously I have taken myself, the more substantial my value has become. If I can continue to be a small part of that success, then I will be proud of the life I lived.

08/09/2023

Sorry for the recent absence. I was off on a vacation along the North Carolina coast, doing my best to prop up the state’s tourism industry. Based on the recent advocacy around Raleigh and Monroe, the industry must really be in dire straits. And to ensure my family did our part, Mrs. EduGram and I sent all three of our kids off to summer camp over in the mountains. Admittedly, our 22-year-old daughter wasn't thrilled when we told her she had to go to a weeklong summer camp for teenage girls, but we made her go. I'm not joking when I say my wife and I are committed to doing whatever is necessary to help our delicate tourism industry here in North Carolina.

This week at EduGram Tech, we're going to turn our focus to some of our sister institutions in higher education. It's been an eventful time for colleges and universities across the country. In perhaps the worst-ever episode of The Dating Game, sports conferences flush with television money started speed-dating with Pac 12 Conference schools. When the music stopped and everyone looked down to see what chair they were sitting in, the Pac 12 had become the Pac 4. That's right. Starting in the 2024-2025 season, every team in the Pac 4 is guaranteed to make the semifinals of their conference tournament. This is actually good news for Washington State, which has never gotten that far before.

But outside of that technical victory for the Cougars, this whole thing reeks of everything that is wrong with the NCAA and the outsized influence television money has over college athletics. You see, over the past few years, college presidents across our great nation have decided to chase money – to prioritize it over the well-being of their student-athletes and the student body at large. Sign up to play volleyball at UCLA so your parents in Reseda can watch you play in your geographic neighborhood? Well, too bad. See, the football team needs new air-conditioned helmets they just created. Those helmets, along with the brand-new construction of our latest nine-figure sports complex, are way more important than whether a team player’s grandmother can attend the volleyball game. But, hey, don't worry, volleyball team -- only 93% of the new sports complex is dedicated to exclusive use by the football team.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of this for those of us here at EduGram Tech (besides not being asked to join the Big 12 or Big 10) is the hypocrisy of the whole thing. This morning, we woke up to see this headline on espn.com: "Greg Sankey feels 'sadness' in realignment, says SEC comfortable in footprint." Keep in mind this is the same Greg Sankey who, as commissioner of the super conference known as the SEC, started this domino effect when the SEC added Texas and Oklahoma to the conference. The SEC stole those schools directly from the Big 12 with promises of sunshine, rainbows, and money... lots and lots of television money. So, when he says he feels "a little tinge of sadness, probably more than just a little" regarding the latest dominoes to fall, the fall that he started, then the hypocrisy BS meter goes off. Frankly, this is kind of like the arsonist feeling "sadness" after the house burns down... from the fire set by said arsonist.

But hey, Sankey isn't the only hypocrite revealed this week. Over in Boone, NC, App State’s head coach, Eli Drinkwitz, rightly criticized the decisions of the schools chasing money at all costs. He held a press conference, at which he was obviously worried about the student-athlete, asking rhetorically, "I'm saying as a collective group, have we asked ourselves what's it going to cost the student-athletes?" Oh, wait... I'm being told that the Drinkwitz press conference was actually in Columbia, MO, where he's coaching the SEC member school’s Missouri Tigers. Apparently, his salary went from $750,00 per season at App State to approximately $4,000,000 per season at Missouri when he bailed on App State for "life-changing money," according to news reports. But hey, I'm sure he told all those high schoolers he recruited to App State that he wasn't going to be there with them for long.

However, even these two hypocrites still have no chance of winning the National Hypocrite of the Year Award. That trophy has long been retired, since only one entity ever wins. That entity? The NCAA. You know, the organization formed in March of 1906 to address safety issues in interscholastic sports. Because during this whole process they have done nothing -- zip, nada, zilch -- to help rein in this gluttonous sports-conference banquet which more resembles the Nathan's Hot Dog Contest than the stated purpose of the NCAA when it was founded more than 100 years ago. You see, during this whole cash run by its member institutions, the NCAA ruled that two players cannot play football for a year because they had violated the "two-transfer rule." This is a new rule that says you can transfer once for any reason you want and still play. But if you try and transfer a second time, well, then you must sit out a year before you can play again. So, this week the NCAA sat silently as century- old traditions were eliminated but had time to tell Tez Walker and Darrell Jackson they can't play football because of this new rule. But didn't Walker and Jackson tell the NCAA why they wanted to transfer? I mean, Jackson needed to transfer so he can be home to help his newly ailing mother. Walker transferred to be closer to home after his entire coaching staff at Kent State quit to go coach at Colorado. Yep, the NCAA knew about both issues and still ruled against them. So, did they also rule the coaches at Kent State have to sit out a year? I mean, they've transferred a lot more than twice in the last four years. Uh... No. Apparently what's good for coaches is completely different than what's good for players.

Anyway, I am so grateful that this desire to prioritize the outside monetary interests of third-party groups being more important than students has not found its way into North Carolina schools. Sure, not letting two kids play college football for stupid reasons is a terrible precedent. But forcing some 85% of the students in North Carolina to start school later than is in their best interest is completely different. The actions of the NCAA and these sports conferences are only about money. Not letting school start when it should is entirely to help ensure vacation rentals are full and there's a full supply of high schoolers available to work for minimum wage at the beach resorts. Frankly, I don't know how anyone could look at these two things and find any similarity. I mean, both are about putting the importance of money over the importance of kids. But, other than that, they're completely different.

Address

Charlotte, NC

Website

facebook.com

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when EduGram posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to EduGram:

EduGram