- Hi, I'm Donna King, filling in for Marc Rotterman.

Coming up on "Front Row," North Carolina's Superintendent of Public Instruction, Catherine Truitt joins us to talk about proposed science and learning standards, revamping the school performance grading systems, and efforts to meet parent demands for transparency.

Next.

- [Announcer] Major funding for "Front Row with Mark Rotterman" is provided by Robert L Luddy.

Additional funding provided by Patricia and Koo Yuen through the Yuen Foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

And by... Funding for the Lightning Round provided by Nicholas B. and Lucy Mayo Boddie Foundation, A.E.

Finley Foundation, NC Realtors, Rifenburg Construction, Stefan Gleason.

A complete list of funders can be found at pbnc.org/frontrow.

[dramatic music] ♪ - Welcome back.

Joining me today is North Carolina's Superintendent of Public Instruction, Catherine Truitt.

Thanks for coming, I appreciate you being here.

- Donna, thank you for having me.

- Yes, we have lots to talk about today.

I know you get, we were just talking about that, you get stopped all the time.

Questions about education.

Everybody's a stakeholder.

- For sure.

- Really.

- That's exactly right.

Very well said.

- Yes, yes, absolutely.

Let's start, this week you had the Council of State meeting, a monthly meeting of all the leaders of the Council of State in North Carolina, individually elected.

You gave us an update on what's happening in your department, in the Department of Public Instruction.

One of the things you talked about that caught my attention, the grading system that schools go through.

We have an A through F grading system, but now maybe it's time for some changes.

Tell me what you all are thinking about that.

- Yeah, so tied to our state accountability model is something we call school performance grades.

And this is a report card grade that schools get, A through F, like you said.

And that grade is supposed to be a measure of quality.

It's supposed to indicate school quality for parents and other stakeholders.

And right now, that system is based on a formula of 80% achievement on high stakes, one and done end of grade testing, and 20% growth.

How far did that teacher grow that group of students that year?

And that's it.

So there are no other ways or metrics that we can define school quality for the public, for parents, other than that testing that occurs one day of the year, one day of the semester.

- Sure, so that's a lot.

- Yes.

- That is really an important number.

What other variables do you think should go into that?

- Yeah, so we conducted a survey a couple of months ago with another organization called EdNC.

And it was a statewide survey.

We got over 19,000 responses, about 45% of which were parents.

And they, about 80% of those respondents said other metrics, besides testing, need to be included.

And so things that people told us that they thought were important were things like chronic absenteeism, availability of afterschool programming, credentials offered and earned in a high school, parent satisfaction surveys.

So lots of things, lots of other ways to determine school quality besides just testing.

We're not gonna replace testing or growth.

but we need to have some other indicators of school quality.

- Very interesting.

But where are we in the process of getting those changes made?

- Yeah, so this is a research design implementation process.

We've done the research.

We are now looking at the design process.

There is an advisory group doing this work that includes folks from higher ed and all kinds of people out in the community.

It's not just a Department of Public Instruction initiative.

And we will in probably February bring those recommendations to the legislature, because this is something that does sit in statute and will need to be changed by the legislature.

- Sure, now the legislature, of course, kicking off in January, February.

- Yes.

- This year for the long session.

Some changes over there.

In addition to this report that you're going to bring to them, what would you like to see the General Assembly, state lawmakers work on to help, particularly when it comes to learning loss, kids who maybe are struggling after being shut down and being remote for a year, year and a half?

- Yeah, so one of the things that I did when I took office was create something called the Office of Learning Recovery.

And that office is dedicated to nothing except looking at what we need to do to get kids back to where they were and even beyond.

And one of the things that that office does is a lot of research.

So we are currently evaluating all of the money that's been spent so far on learning loss recovery, some things that districts have done, some things that the legislature has funded.

And we will be bringing those recommendations to the legislature sometime in the spring.

The long session will, of course, go until, through the summer.

And so we are looking very closely at what's working, what's not working.

But one of the things we know for sure from the research that this group has done is that math was the subject that was hit the hardest when it comes to learning loss and in particular middle school math.

So we're hoping to be able to make some recommendations in terms of funding there.

But remember Donna, the state is still sitting on 2.7 billion dollars in funding just for K-12 education from the federal government that districts have another two years to spend.

So I would like to see districts really look at the data that we've given to them about their students and say, yeah, based on this data, we need to be spending money on this.

- Sure, sure.

Was there any program or project or something that really stood out to you as something innovative that people are working on that is helping them catch up?

Because I know you probably, you know, there's a lot of innovation happening at the really local level.

- That is so true.

We do, I'm across the state, you know, every month.

And I see so much innovation, particularly in our rural districts.

And so one of the things that I've been really impressed with is some math boot camps that I've seen in various places.

But the thing that's happening the most, and we did use some federal funding to do this, as well as some state funding, that I think is probably the most important thing that we're doing is this transition to what's called the Science of Reading.

And that is the idea that we need to return to a phonics based approach to early literacy instruction.

We've spent probably about 40 million dollars of that federal money providing professional development to about 44,000 pre-K through fifth grade teachers on a phonics based approach to early literacy instruction.

And Donna, our students, our K three students are actually growing faster than the rest of the nation when it comes to learning to read.

- That is really exciting.

- It is.

- Now phonics, you know, phonics is how I learned and it's probably how you learned, but there was a period where whole language was becoming a popular way to teach people.

Explain a little bit about this return to phonics, why it's important.

- So, you're right, whole language really took hold in the eighties in this country.

And it is currently the dominant form of early literacy instruction.

And whole language is the idea that rather than learning first how to match letters to the sounds that they make there are context clues.

Teachers might ask students to look at pictures and match the word to the picture.

And that is not how the brain learns to read.

We are hardwired to learn to speak.

We are not hardwired to learn to read, the alphabet is a relatively new invention for us humans.

So learning to decode or sound out.

- Sound it out.

That's what we've always heard.

- That is how the brain learns to read regardless of whether one has dyslexia or not.

I mean, we know that actually that dyslexic children learn to read by sounding out words.

Well, it turns out that's how all people learn to read.

- Sure.

That is amazing.

Now, maybe there's a little bit of a silver lining in some of these, you know, having the whole education system flipped upside down during pandemic shutdowns because there's, you know, some things we're learning and people are more willing to get engaged.

And those kind of things.

Do you think that the learning loss is something these kids can recover from?

Because I'm hearing a lot of long-term, but you're having to deal with the right now, you know, how are we gonna get these juniors in high school ready for college?

How are we gonna get the eighth graders ready for high school?

Do you think that this is short term and long term and do you think we can really get them back on track?

- Yeah.

Unfortunately, I think that the longer, the longer it takes is going to correlate to poverty.

And that's really unfortunate.

And our districts, our school leaders, our teachers are doing everything they can to try and compensate for that lost instructional time.

I would say that I'm less worried about our younger students and more worried about our older students, but I do think that the universities recognize the significance of the learning loss that has occurred.

So, I'm hoping it won't impact direct opportunity for our older students, but it is very concerning.

- Sure.

Sure.

And something that I think in future employers will be aware of internships, mentorships, those things are gonna be really important.

- That's right.

That's right.

Absolutely.

And we've really, you know, one of my priorities has been to do everything I can to support parents and districts, and especially our counselors.

In this idea that students need to know all of the options that are available to them.

And that includes options other than a four year residential college degree.

We really have to stop telling students that the only pathway to the middle class is a four year college degree.

There are so many other ways that a student can make a great living, not all of which include going to college right away.

And I think that when I, when I look only about 22% of kids graduate from high school every year and get a college degree by the time they're 24, actually finish that degree.

We have a lot of leak in the pipeline and nothing makes me sadder than when I see a student cross the graduation stage.

And I say, so what are you gonna do now?

And they say, oh, I don't know.

- Right.

- I don't know what I'm gonna do now.

It doesn't have to be that way.

And so, we've been providing toolkits and all kinds of resources and assets for parents, for our counselors and teachers to really help students understand what are all the options available to me.

- Sure.

And you named this 2022, the year of the workforce.

- That's right.

- And that's really steps toward that.

What does that mean, year of the workforce?

- Yeah.

That means that we need to make sure that our students are taking career and technical education courses that are actually aligned to those job pathways that currently exist in North Carolina.

Which is something that my agency has worked to do.

You know, the legislature pays for students to take those career and technical education tests that lead to certificates.

So we wanna make sure that all students have access to career and technical education in their high school that leads to a job.

We also want to make sure that we're communicating this again to our parents.

- Sure.

- And to businesses.

We need for businesses to partner with their high schools.

All high schools have a business advisory council.

Businesses need to find out what's going on, especially if they're having workforce shortages.

And then we need to make sure that we are providing work-based learning for students.

You know, there's absolutely no reason that middle school students cannot start having conversations with their teachers about what the future holds for them.

It doesn't mean that they have to know when they're in the seventh grade what they want to do for a living but they need to know what other jobs are out there aside from being a doctor or a lawyer.

- Sure.

Sure.

Now that portrait of a graduate, we were talking about.

That starts much earlier than senior year.

- Yes, that's right.

So one of the things that my team and I did was we launched a statewide initiative with groups within each of our eight education regions.

So we really included the entire state again, to create something called a statewide Port River graduate.

This is not a new idea.

Other states have something like this, but North Carolina did not.

And what that group did was they asked the question, what do our students need to be able to do?

What competencies do they need to have when they graduate from high school?

And those design teams took 51 different competencies and they narrowed them down to seven.

And those seven competencies are adaptability, collaboration, communication, critical thinking, empathy, learner's mindset, and personal responsibility.

- We all need those.

- We all need those regardless of what job that we're going to do.

And our system of education needs to recognize that the nature of workforce has changed.

And that the purpose of education, ultimately, is to prepare students for the post-secondary plans of their choice.

Not to prepare a fourth grader for fifth grade, not to prepare an eighth grader for ninth grade, not to prepare kids for an AP exam but to prepare them to be successful in whatever it is they choose to do.

- Sure.

And parents play a big part of that.

- They do.

- They really do.

This election year had so much, I think, an elevated voice for parents.

Parents were still coming off of some of these shutdowns and things that they were hearing.

I know that some of them are internet rumors and some of them are legitimate problems that they're seeing in the classroom.

Parents had a really front row seat to what was happening.

- They did.

- During that time.

What are you hearing from parents about what they want to see from their public school system?

- Yeah, parents just want transparency.

They want transparency, they want to, they want their questions to be able to be answered in a timely manner.

They wanna feel like they're welcome at their child's school.

- [Donna] Right.

And I think that most parents do feel that, but I think at the same time, as you said, the pandemic really did give them that up close and personal view into what's happening in the classroom.

And if I had been a teacher during the pandemic and would've had to flip that light switch and go right to remote, I don't know that I would've wanted parents- - [Donna] Oh, sure.

- Evaluating me based on that.

But the truth of the matter is that parents didn't like everything that they saw.

And actually a Hunt Institute report, they just did some national research, that says that 50% of parents in the United States have lost confidence in education leaders.

- Wow.

- Not teachers, education leaders.

And so I, I think that there's some trust that that needs to be gained back.

- [Donna] Right.

- And I think that parent voice and parent choice, is something that is not gonna go away.

I think it's here to stay.

And I created a Parent Advisory Council.

- [Donna] Sure.

- And what I have learned from that council is that all parents have, fall in a continuum about how they feel about public schools.

- Sure.

- And I want to know, I want to hear, from those parents who didn't choose public schools as an option for their children, why that is.

- [Donna] Sure.

- And I wanna share that information.

I'm the superintendent of public schools.

I care about public schools but a neighborhood public school is not always the best option for a child, even a great neighborhood public school.

- Sure.

- And I truly believe that no one cares more or knows a child better than that child's parents or guardians.

And so I think for those reasons, it's important for public school leaders to listen to what a community is saying about those public schools.

And I think that's why we're seeing, we saw such a great response on our survey that we did statewide.

- Sure.

- From parents, it wasn't just educators who filled out that survey.

It was, almost half were parents.

- Wow, now that Parent Advisory Council, what are they telling you and where are you in the process?

Have they started meeting yet?

- Yeah, so we had our first meeting a couple of months ago.

- [Donna] Okay.

- In-person, in Raleigh.

- [Donna] Okay.

- There's representation from all eight of our our education regions across the state.

There is representation from homeschool families, private school families, public charter school, and of course our public school parents- - [Donna] Sure.

- Comprise the majority- - [Donna] The majority, yeah.

- The majority of that group.

- Right.

- And their, it was really interesting.

That group was so happy to tell me how much they loved their children's teachers.

- That's great.

- And it was really amazing to hear that as individuals, they could all point to teachers in their child's lives that really were making an impact on their child.

- Sure.

- Not all parents had had a good experience with public schools, but what I learned was that those parents were sympathetic to the plight of teachers and all of the scrutiny that teachers are under.

And I so appreciated hearing that because I frequently say, teachers are doing the best they can in the system that they have to work in.

- [Donna] Sure.

- It's not the teachers that need to change, it's the system of education.

And I think that system kind of binds up our teachers sometimes and doesn't allow them to do necessarily what they think is best for students.

But the parents told me that they wanted to learn more about school choice.

They wanted to learn more about school safety, that was a really important topic to them.

They wanted to learn more about testing and accountability.

Why are there, why does their child get so stressed out about this one-and-done test at the end of the year?

There were a lot of different things that they wanted to learn more about.

And so, in between meetings, we are providing them with webinars- - [Donna] Sure.

- From directors at my agency to kind of help them understand what K-12 governance looks like in our state, a little bit more about the Center for Safer Schools, which is a division of the Department of Public Instruction that looks just at school safety- - [Donna] Sure.

- So, lots of things to, to kind of help our parents be able to advocate for themselves and for their child's education.

- Sure, 'cause a lot of those decisions are made at the local level.

They're not made- - [Catherine] That's right.

- Made at the state level, or even the federal level, so.

- Correct.

- How are you, we talked a little bit about the amount of money that we, that the State of North Carolina and our school system got from the federal government to recover learning loss.

- [Catherine] Yeah.

- How is, do you know how that's being spent?

How is it being tracked?

When you, we don't wanna see just money go into a void or not be used, or not be used for what we need.

- [Catherine] Right.

- How do you know what schools are doing with it?

- So our Financial Business Services Division, led by CFO, Alexis Schauss- - [Donna] Sure.

- At the department, created a tracker that anyone can go to.

It lives on our website and they can go to that tracker and see, down to the district, how that money is being spent, how much of it has been spent, what it's being spent on.

- [Donna] Sure.

- And we report to the State Board of Education on how much of that money has been drawn down every month.

And again, this last pot of money, which was the biggest amount, districts have until the end of 2024- - [Donna] Okay.

- To spend that money.

- Okay.

- Well, good, the health, new science and health curriculum- - Yeah.

- Is coming out, now I don't know where it is in the process, if people can go on and see it.

And it's a proposal at this point, if I'm understanding correctly.

Where can people see it and what kind of feedback or do you have an a vehicle for them to give you feedback on it?

- Yes, so the entire process of revising standards.

- Okay.

- Lives in state board policy.

And when I took office, I noticed that there was, other than that policy, there was nothing in writing that could let the public know what that process was.

So I had the team create an internal procedures manual which lives on our website.

And that internal procedures manual is a guide for our employees who work on this.

The teachers that we hire to help- Because remember standards in North Carolina are written by North Carolina teachers.

The department facilitates the process and the state board ultimately approves, with a vote, the academic standards.

So right now, we are simultaneously revising standards for science and for healthful living, which includes health education and physical education, - PE, gym class.

- Okay, sure.

- And those standards, a first draft has been completed, and it lives on the department's website.

So anyone can go, we're in a period of public comment until December 18th.

And so anyone can go and weigh in on those standards.

We do surveys as part of this process, and 70% of teachers reported for the science standards that they did not want any standards to change.

- Oh, interesting.

- That they felt that the current standards were adequate.

- Sure, okay.

Before we wrap up, there was a bill filed last legislative session that would make the State Board of Education elected positions.

And it would, I believe, give your role, the superintendent of public instruction, a vote on that state board.

Would you like to see it come back up?

What did you think of that bill?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

I ran for this role and took office knowing full well the problematic governance structure that we have in North Carolina.

Our governance structure is actually the only one of its kind in the country.

- Oh, really?

- Yeah.

- So yeah.

I thought it was a very interesting bill.

I think it would also make the state superintendent the chair of the state board.

But I did come into office knowing what that was and without there being any expectation of change.

That said, I think that folks on both sides of the aisle would say that over the decades that that governance structure has been a bit problematic.

I mean, we've had two lawsuits from both sides of the aisle regarding this governance structure over the last 15 years.

And so it'll be interesting to see what happens with that bill.

And I don't know if there's a final version or not.

Or if they'll even bring it forward this time.

But I look forward to weighing in.

- Sure, sure.

So you do have a lot coming up in the next year and you know, going into 2024, do you anticipate continuing in this, wanting to continue in this role?

What are the plans for you personally down the road?

- Yeah, yeah.

No, I'm absolutely going to run again for this role.

I need another six years from today to get done what my team and I have set out to do.

I'm incredibly happy with the progress that we've made in a system that's really designed to move slowly.

So, I just can't say enough about the people that I get to work with across the state every day in education and the positive momentum and movement towards innovation in education.

- It is exciting.

And learning loss is something I know we're all gonna be wrestling with for a while.

But it sounds like a plan is in place, and those boots on the ground, the teachers there, are doing yeoman's work to try and pull people back in.

- Yes, that's exactly right.

- Right, very exciting.

Well, North Carolina superintendent of public instruction, Catherine Truitt, thank you so much for being here with us on "Front Row" this week.

- Thank you, Donna.

I'll come back anytime.

- Good, good.

I'm glad to see it.

Okay, well, and that's it for us.

Please tune in next week on front row with Marc Rotterman.

Thank you for watching.

[dramatic music] ♪ - Major funding for "Front Row" with Marc Rotterman is provided by Robert L. Luddy.

Additional funding provided by Patricia and Koo Yuen through the Yuen Foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

And by- Funding for the "Lightning Round" provided by Nicholas B. and Lucy Mayo Boddie Foundation, A.E.

Finley Foundation, NC Realtors, Rifenburg Construction, Stefan Gleason.

A complete list of funders can be found at pbsnc.org/frontrow.

[dramatic music] ♪