RALEIGH — More money and iPads are coming to K-3 classrooms to bolster literacy instruction, but critics question the methods used to improve reading scores.

PEMBROKE — Jovian Zayne shared her personal story of beating the odds and becoming an international public speaker with UNC Pembroke’s Class of 2023.

RALEIGH — North Carolina’s failure to pass a budget could affect a state-mandated financial literacy course requirement for all public high schools.

WADESBORO — With the start of the school year just around the corner, Pee Dee Electric is reminding local K-12 teachers to submit their applications for a Bright Ideas education grant. Teachers who submit their applications by the early-bird deadline of Aug. 15 will be entered into a statewide drawing to win one of five $100 gift cards. 

RALEIGH — Education stakeholders have long puzzled over how to implement the standards laid out in the decades-old Leandro case. A couple of groups are forming ideas to ensure the state lives up to the standards, but the range of conflicting voices involved may complicate the issue. 

North Carolina Democrats and Republicans have sparred for years about the level of state funding for public schools. Democrats argue the GOP-led legislature has the wrong priorities, that it ought to have cut taxes less and boosted school funding more. Republicans argue that the big drop in inflation-adjusted funding occurred during the recessionary years of 2009 to 2011 when Democrats were charge, that recent years have brought substantial increases, and that fostering economic growth will produce higher and more stable funding for education and other services in the long run.

RALEIGH — U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and N.C. Lt. Gov. Dan Forest this week gathered a roundtable of school-choice advocates to pitch Education Freedom Scholarships.

RALEIGH — A bill introduced this year by state Sen. Tom McInnis, R-Richmond, to keep teachers in the classroom was signed into law by Gov. Roy Cooper on Monday.

Many political and education leaders in North Carolina say that our economy would be better off if our level of educational attainment was higher. They’re probably right about that, as long as their definition of “educational attainment” is sufficiently broad.

RALEIGH — The N.C. Senate passed a $24 billion General Fund spending plan without debate. The House took nearly an hour Thursday, June 27, before following suit and approving the 2019-21 compromise proposal, House Bill 966.