Sound Basic Education for All: An Action Plan for North Carolina

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301

Equal Education; State Government; Court Litigation; Childrens Rights; Student Rights; Access to Education; Compliance (Legal); Accountability; Academic Achievement; Resource Allocation; Educational Finance; Faculty Development; Principals; Management Development; Early Childhood Education; Poverty; School Effectiveness; Educational Assessment; Educational Improvement; Progress Monitoring; Elementary Secondary Education

Throughout every region of North Carolina, leaders of organizations in all fields -- business, education, government, community, faith-based, and others -- agree that the future prosperity and well-being of the state's citizens requires successfully educating all of its children. That means effectively supporting children of every race and ethnicity, economic level, family background, and location, from the most rural to the most urban. However, North Carolina's current education system fails to meet the educational needs of many of its children and thereby fails to provide for the future success of these individuals, their communities, and the state. The Supreme Court of North Carolina's decision in "Leandro v. the State of North Carolina" (1997) ("Leandro") affirmed that the state has a constitutional responsibility to provide every student with an equal opportunity for a sound basic education and that the state was failing to meet that responsibility. As documented in this action plan, the challenges of meeting this responsibility have increased since the original decision, and the state needs to significantly increase its commitment and efforts to provide for the education of every student. This action plan provides recommendations for actions that will advance the state's efforts to achieve compliance with the "Leandro" decision. It identifies the highest leverage and most critical actions that the state needs to take immediately and over the next six years and beyond to transform the education system and provide the necessary foundational opportunities for all students.

ERIC

2020

ED606141