Republican State Superintendent of Public Schools in North Carolina, Catherine Truitt, is talking about restoring hope in the lives of North Carolina families by focusing on students building employment-based skills, as opposed to social justice “skills”.
Truitt’s agenda should be a welcome discussion for ‘Critical Race Theory’ embattled North Carolina parents and students- and employers.
“We needed to overhaul the public school system about 15 years ago,” Truitt told Tim Boyum, on his podcast Tying It All Together, recently. (Link to podcast in the following tweet.)
Truitt talked about a long-range of topics from COVID learning loss to setting school calendars based on what is good for the community. She also addressed teachers’ desire to close learning gaps for their students and teach mastery of important and useful skills.
Truitt discussed her opposition who claim there should be no private and public partnership.
As if talking to employers about what they are looking for in employees, and teaching kids skills is bad, ignoring the fact that many of the problems parents are currently complaining in NC public schools stem from to those exact private partnerships with leftist Non-Government Organizations, that gave us culturally responsive teaching and Critical Race Theory and other social justice concepts.
“Business are already reaching into schools. Google is reaching into the schools to find their talent pipeline. Some students can get 6 IT credentials and could get a job without getting into Community College. It may sound crass to say, but no parent wants their child living in their basement when they are 23,” Truitt said.
“We used to say that the purpose of High School is get into college and we have sold parents a bill of goods by saying that the only way to get to the middle class – through college. It isn’t college for all, we should be saying, Jobs for all,” she said.
The left and the established order in North Carolina are furious with Truitt, her associates and Conservative Republicans in the General Assembly who are talking about creating a new public school system for the state which includes education about trades.
“A lot of what I have been doing since last Jan is focusing on kids reading before third grade because kids were behind before the pandemic and the pandemic exasperated those numbers. I want to talk about how we are defining school quality. A schools report card for everyone to see is based on how kids do on test scores and 20% growth or how kids have changed in a year’s period of time. I want to focus on how we get kids ready for leaving high school. Credential of Marketplace Value. We need to reexamine what we cancel Public K-12 and the system is valuing something else. Teachers value something else. They want to get taught critical thinking skills and teachers are feeling boxed in. We still need to have assessments- but we don’t need a One and Down, assessment,” Truitt said.
“We need to look at what credentials match up with employer demand in our state. We are not doing that right now. The number one thing kids are learning is Microsoft office. Kids can do PowerPoint in elementary school, so they don’t need PowerPoint,” she said.
It is a great interview from a true school reformer.
Boyum described the interview with Truitt as:
Is our education system outdated by more than a century? Are we doing enough to prepare our kids for future jobs and providing enough skilled workers for all the companies that want to come to North Carolina? What about all the high-stakes testing?
We tackle those questions this week with Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt and N.C. Chamber CEO Gary Salamido. They are working together to shake up education with some big ideas and admittedly some ideas that will raise the blood pressure of those who are nervous about changing institutions like public education. It’s a fascinating discussion about the future of education.
NC SCHOOLS ARE A BATTLEGROUND
After a series of my articles in May of 2020 brought community outcry from exposing leftist indoctrination through a private corporation pushing who was pushing Critically Responsive Teaching and Critical Race Theory on North Carolina teachers and school staff, The Department of Public Instruction did pull those training down.
Here are a few of those articles:
The North Carolina House Committee on Education Systems for North Carolina’s Future is meeting on a regular basis and Truitt has vowed to have a parent’s committee to discuss what needs to be changed in the system as well, promising to include North Carolina’s Homeschoolers on her own board.