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With all that’s occurred at Oak Ridge Military Academy I thought I’d ask, who among you would send you child to a military school and why? Discipline? Leadership? A shot at college?

Is the idea of a military school outdated or should more schools adopt the regimen emphasized at such schools?
 

Following the outcome of last week's lawsuit (click here), William Harrison said he will step down as CEO of DPI and focus on his role as Chairman of the State Board of Education.

Here's an e-mail from Harrison to DPI employees passed on by someone at DPI. (Thanks. You know who you are.) 

Dear Colleagues,

As you are aware, I have spent a great deal of time during the last two days responding to a legal dispute regarding my position as CEO. Quite frankly, I’ve wasted too many hours on this case – hours I would rather use working with you and education leaders across the state to accomplish the one thing Gov. Perdue asked of me six months ago: reforming our public education system to best serve our children. Because the 1.4 million students in this state remain my primary focus, and because I feel I can best serve them by focusing on my role as chair of the State Board, I will retire from DPI effective Aug. 31, 2009.

I have truly enjoyed working with this staff, and I look forward to continuing the relationships we’ve built since March. Like many in the field, I came to this job with a perception of DPI that wasn’t accurate.

There are incredibly talented people working in this Department, and the work you are doing makes a real difference in the lives of our kids. I hope you feel I have supported you in that work, and know that as we go forward, you can count on my continued engagement and involvement as chair of the State Board.

Thank you for what you do everyday to improve the public education system in North Carolina. I look forward to working with you and Superintendent Atkinson.

Bill

William C. Harrison, Ed.D.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
State Board of Education
6302 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-6302
 

Exam scores climbed last year. Read about it here and here.

Scores went up over the previous year in no small part because the state and feds counted retesting scores. I’ve asked what was done in those few days that made such a difference.Beth Folger, the GCS chief academic officer, said the best teachers are pulled to tutor the low scoring students and that the students’ problem areas are identified and that’s the focus of the tutoring.

So what should we take away from that?

UPDATE: Active reader David Colin asked me last week if I knew what the retests looked like. I didn't so I got the folks at GCS to give us some info. Here are my questions and Chief Accountability and Research Officer Gongshu Zhang's answers.

These might need a little more clairity but I'll work on it.

Thanks to David for the good questions.

Things aren’t looking good for teachers and other school employees. Legislators and county commissioners seem set on not raising taxes. If it means cuts of this magnitude should they rethink that stance?

With graduation right around the corner who would you choose to give the commencement speech and why would you choose that person?

If you're a parent of a high school student tell us at what high school.

How much should the school system spend to find out what, if anything, is making students and staff sick at Oak Ridge Elementary?

If the health department investigation turns up nothing, will anyone believe it?

Here are some of the stories.

We've started a Twitter account! Follow us here http://twitter.com/guilfordschools
With all that's going on with education in our state and here in Guilford County you can expect to get lots of live updates on all the comings and goings.

And we'll have plenty of discussions continued here at The Chalkboard.

I'm curious if there are teachers out there who would like to share who these budget cuts are affecting them.

Or if you own a business that sees a lot of teachers and school system employees how is impacting you?

So what does everyone think about yesterday's announcements concerning Northern?