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- Are some important things to business, things like a stable policy, a good community to have your business in, available markets, and low-cost funding.

And then there's a really big one, education.

Education of workers, and education up to that worker taking the job.

I'm Chris William, welcome again to the most widely watched and longest running program on Carolina business policy and public affairs seen each and every week across North and South Carolina.

Thank you for supporting this dialogue.

In a moment, we start this dialogue, and later on in the area of education, she knows a little something about it, at least in North Carolina, we welcome again DPI's Superintendent of Education in North Carolina, Catherine Truitt, and we start right now.

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On this edition of Carolina Business Review, Cecilia Holden of My Future NC, Dr. Nicholas J. Hill, from Claflin University, and special guest, Catherine Truitt, North Carolina's Superintendent of Education.

(energetic newscast music) - Welcome again to our program.

Nicholas, welcome in studio this time.

- Pleasure to be here.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

Glad to have you back.

And Cecilia, you too, you both were virtual.

You've been to the studio, but both virtual, and glad to have you back.

- Glad to be here.

Thank you.

- So, Cecilia, let's start with kind of the elephant in the room that everybody's talking about, it's not the thing that people are ignoring, and the idea of pandemic's lost learning in the educational attainment in North Carolina and South Carolina.

How bad is it?

- So, would it be helpful if I give a little bit about the goal for my future and the state's attainment goal?

- Please, yeah, yeah.

- So North Carolina has a goal, and the goal is to have 2 million North Carolinians ages 25 to 44 to have a industry value credential or a post-secondary degree by the year 2030.

So of course we monitor where we're tracking toward the goal.

And I believe that there are a couple of data points that might be helpful in the conversation.

One is we currently are about, give or take, 450,000 away from meeting the goal.

- And this is 2030?

2030 goal.

- So seven years.

- Seven years.

And when you think about that, where are we currently tracking?

We're 31,000 behind where we need to be at this point in time.

- Because of the pandemic?

- No.

That is based on where we're coming out of the pandemic.

When you look at the completion numbers for post-secondary, we're actually doing well on completion percentages.

We're meeting the targets.

But what you're not seeing is the enrollment numbers that we need in order to get individuals to college.

So if you're not seeing the enrollment numbers where you need 'em, doesn't matter what your completion rate is, if you're not completing a high number of enrollees.

So we're seeing where students that are coming out of our K-12 system, they're coming in, and what I'm hearing from the colleges is that they're not as academically prepared coming out of the pandemic.

And therefore, the colleges are receiving the students and needing to do remediation on the front-end.

That was already true before the pandemic, but I believe it's been exacerbated as a result of the pandemic.

And then in addition to that, we've got fewer individuals that are matriculating on time into our post-secondary institutions.

So you're not seeing the numbers where they should be on the enrollment.

- Are these numbers, as you described it, are these alarm bells going off for people?

Or is this we're concerned, we feel like we can hit it?

Or is there something more urgent in your mind?

- When we went into this 2 million by 2030 goal, this was in 2019, this was pre pandemic.

I started in December of 2019, and then the pandemic hit March of 2020, everybody went home.

And at that point in time we knew that North Carolina and the rest of the nation had a talent crisis.

I would say that we're facing a state of emergency around talent.

- Nicholas, I wanna bring you into this, why you may not be upstream with K through 12.

You're certainly downstream.

So kids coming in, not just to your business school at Claflin, but higher ed, and not prepared.

Do you see that same thing happening?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So thank you Chris for that.

One of the things that you see in the real landscape of just education is that when the pandemic hit, there was a pivot that had to happen for all universities and colleges.

And we suspect that that also happened at the high school level.

And those high schools that did not have a digital system to really kind of engage students throughout that time, there was a loss of learning that took place.

So now when they come here, a lot of universities face heavy-lifting to try to get them better prepared for what they're gonna do after they graduate.

So, one of the things that we see also is that a lot of the students on the application and things say, well I wanna take a year off.

I'm not really ready to prepare for what you're gonna expect for college.

A lot of the professors recommend more tutoring for the students.

There's a lot of strain on the professors and teachers 'cause they now have a little bit more of a heavy-lifting that are there.

Universities that are able to pivot, that are able to kind of adjust, they're gonna be able to sustain this.

But other ones due to lack of resources, or whatever, It's gonna be a uphill battle for a couple of more years to come.

'Cause we're still transitioning out of that two years, three year gap that the students weren't able to really get involved in school.

- So you have to redeploy resources just to remediate kids to get them to be acceptable enough in some standard for an acceptance into a college program?

- Pretty much across the board there's a lot more emphasis on support, not necessarily remediate, but really support some of the things that are still going on.

But on the academic side, it's taking the time to understand that the student who you got may be different than the one that you previously would've gotten prior to the pandemic.

So professors now have to utilize different tools, they have to engage differently with this group, knowing that they've been kind of isolated.

And so all of that factors go in as well.

And so this puts a little bit more strain on what a professor does when they come into the classroom.

How do they engage, how do they prepare?

And universities that are able to do that, who are able to really engage in different pedagogies, they are able to sustain what is coming, this wave that is coming.

- Cecilia, I want to ask this question, and it's not meant to be dismissive or insensitive.

But if everyone is feeling the same effect, and I don't mean just North and South Carolina, but I mean the competitive landscape for economic development across the country.

And you could argue that the South has a better competitive advantage, but if everyone's feeling that same pressure, then are we not overstating it, but I think you understand what I'm saying.

If everyone feels the same thing, then it put us back some.

So, are we more urgent than we need to be?

- I'm gonna answer, I think we've got opportunities because North Carolina is on fire on economic development.

And so even in the midst of the pandemic, while education hit pause for a bit, the jobs continued.

And we were able to continue to attract and retain existing businesses, and grow those businesses.

And what we're seeing, and the projections are, that we will end up with another 222,000 jobs that require higher levels of education by the year 2030.

That's in addition to what we were already looking at.

So it's a great problem to have.

So it's opportunities, and making sure that we continue to keep the full court press around it.

- Cecilia mentioned for North Carolina, and Nicholas I know you know this with South Carolina, biggest ever economic development year ever, ever, ever, ever.

I know that's not very elegant, but it was a big year.

So that translates to jobs needed as well.

Do you feel the output and the pressure on schools to help hit those bogies to get those students in those seats, to get 'em into those jobs?

- Yeah, and and I'll tell you this, one of the things is that the workforce development a lot of companies are now engaging with universities.

They're coming there saying, "Hey we need these workers trained."

At our University of Claflin almost every week there's some corporation that is coming to the university for job recruitment.

And I believe it's across the board, South Carolina as you know, with the numbers coming out number one tire exporter, and they're number one production in manufacturing.

So, one of the things that you see is that industry is heavily recruiting, trying to get students for their workforce.

- Okay, stay with us.

We're running out of time, we'll bring our guest on.

Before we do that though, coming up on this program a serious and a serious and a fun business.

The first serious business is, and she has been on this program before, is the chairman and CEO of one of the largest public utilities in this country, Lynn Good joins us again.

And then a guy named Dane Barnes.

That name may not mean anything to you right away, but if you've ever been to the North Carolina and the South Carolina beaches in the summer, you've seen these things called shibumi's.

They look like sails, and they're like rabbits.

They're everywhere now.

Dane Barnes, the co-founder, think he even went to Carolina or state in North Carolina, developed this idea, and they are a wild success story, and a fun group.

Dane Barnes will join us on that program.

Joining us now is the head of more than just education in North Carolina.

She's the superintendent of education for the Old North State, and the head of Department of Public Instruction.

We're glad to have back on this program Superintendent Katherine Truitt.

Madam your Honor, welcome again.

Good to see you.

- Thank you for having me, Chris.

- Let's start with educational attainment.

As I asked Cecilia early on, are alarm bells going off for you?

- So alarm bells were going off for me before the pandemic, which is why I ran for this role.

Cecilia's right when she says that things like remediation in higher ed were happening before the pandemic.

So when I look at the strategic plan that I built for four years for the Department of Public Instruction and how we support our schools, it addresses longstanding challenges in education, in K-12 in our state, but also has a forward-looking view of how we can really innovate coming out of the pandemic.

So my alarm bells are definitely looking at our proficiency scores in math and literacy prior to the pandemic as well as coming out of the pandemic.

- Does it feel exponentially worse because of what happened with this public health crisis?

- I wouldn't say exponentially worse in terms of academics.

I would say that the social and emotional health of our students is exponentially worse.

The isolation that's been discussed definitely has taken a toll on our students.

We're seeing higher instances of disciplinary action of our students coming out of the pandemic.

But the bottom line is that we have taken steps already to remedy a lot of these challenges that are specific to academics, and we're starting to see the fruits of that labor, especially in our early grades.

- Cecilia, question?

- When I think about, obviously selfishly, I'm looking at 2 million by 2030, and Katherine you've got a very unique background.

And you came from the classroom first, and then you served in a role that clearly would align DPI and our UNC system, and that bridge with a dual report.

And then went over to be chancellor of a Western Governor University.

And so when I think about educational attainment, from the unique lens that you've seen it, what did you see was needed out of K-12 in order to achieve higher levels of education from the roles that you used to fill?

And how are you seeing what you're doing now, making sure that we're getting these enrollment numbers back up?

- Thanks for that question.

When I was in those previous roles, I got to see what happens when students don't persist in their plans after high school, whether they don't make it to the second semester, whether they don't enroll at all, whether they make it to the very last semester and then cannot afford to pay their tuition.

And so it really caused me to have that lens of who is not being served by our current K-12 education system?

And so really what it trained me to do was to think about the fact that the purpose of third grade is not to get ready for fourth grade.

The purpose of third grade is to prepare a student ultimately for the post-secondary plans of their choice.

But what we expect from teachers is to get them ready for fourth grade.

And so I think what we've done at the agency is alongside of My Future NC, is reorient the purpose of K-12 education towards being successful in whatever it is that you choose to do after high school.

And that is a very large paradigm shift, hard to do in the testing culture that we live in.

And this bill of goods we've sold parents, which is that the only pathway to the middle class is with a four year residential college degree, which I do not agree with.

- Yeah, so to that point, are there ways that universities and higher ed can engage with the K through 12 that you would kind of recommend?

Or is this much more of an isolated community family issue?

Like where you're from dictates where you're gonna go through through the path?

What are some things that you would maybe recommend for that?

- Yeah, and unfortunately sometimes the data show that, that where you're from can dictate your path and that's certainly not what we want in a system of education that's supposed to level the playing field.

I think what you spoke about earlier, Dr. Hill, about the support that your professors are giving is key.

When there was a study done a couple of years ago that was presented to the UNC Board of Governors that looked at who was stopping out of their four year education and why?

And only half of the students they tracked over eight years were unable to complete because of their GPA or academics.

Half.

So half were stopping out for other barriers.

And the more that higher ed can address those barriers, the more successful all kids will be in completing their two or four year degree.

- And to your point, one of the things that we saw, and were able to get funding is with this stop out program.

And so those people who started, they weren't able to go because of that 50%, that financial or something, we're now receiving funding to where they can come and complete their degree.

So to your credit, that is exactly correct.

That's what's leading to some of the hiccups, or obstacles with completing education.

- Absolutely.

- Let me come back.

As you talk about lost educational attainment, as you talk about low performing schools, which we haven't gotten to yet, and you also mentioned teachers getting the student to focus or getting teachers to understand that they're teaching past fourth grade.

That's a battlefront to some degree, and a battlefront, madam, when I talk about keeping teachers in the seats, getting them the raises.

and/or getting them the benefits.

And this is not funny, and I'm not laughing at it, but how do you just manage that dynamic of trying to get these professionals that are strapped on the front of this job to better pay, and also get them to understand what new program and what new policy you feel is important for them to understand?

- Okay, I'm gonna tackle this with one specific point first.

And that is that the way we define low performing schools in our state is a broken model.

So when we talk about support for low performing schools, that low performing designation comes from a test that is given to a child on one day of the year, at the end of the year or the end of the semester.

And that is worth 80% of that school's performance grade.

And so I think that's one of the things that pretty much everyone who works in education agrees on, that that model of how we designate a letter grade to a school is broken.

So that is something that I've been working on for the past year.

And there is a bill right now making its way through the general assembly that would ask my agency to come before the legislature in April, and lift up and share our findings of what we've been researching about what would work better.

How should we be defining school success and school quality?

Student success and school quality.

The other piece of that is that teachers in the United States spend less time in professional development than teachers in any other developed country.

We, our teachers spend more time in the classroom than teachers in any other developed country.

We need to give more professional development to our teachers, and it needs to be funded.

That's not something that's happening right I would argue.

- Funded as compensated for teachers to take that time to do that?

- Yes, but we need to have funding to have the capacity to offer the professional development in the first place.

And it needs to be professional development that's not tied to compliance.

It needs to be professional development that is specific to the needs of a district.

And then just a quick follow up, how to handicap that the bill will make it through, as you would like to have it written?

- So it's passed out of the house, and it is with the Senate right now.

And I'm not sure when it will be heard, but I'm hoping that they will take into account what we're asking for with that professional development.

- [Chris] Cecilia, question?

- I'm just thinking about Dr. Hill and Superintendent Truitt and thinking what could we do together that we cannot do alone?

- I think that the transition from high school to two year or four year university is really crucial.

The need to fill out the FAFSA application that My Future has worked on.

The communication with parents about what options are available for their children, and how can it be paid for?

The flexibilities that are going to be needed for students who might need to work while they're pursuing their post-secondary education.

And I think also that traditional universities are going to have to change their model a bit to meet the needs of what's required for people to participate in a global economy.

I think that much like K-12 education, the system that we have in place with our universities is old and might need a refresh.

- Dr. Hill?

- Yeah.

And to your point, I do wanna ask whether or not you know of any models that you speak on with regards to that kind of work, whether or not this traditional approach to how we do education, if that's not working, do you have any recommendations?

'Cause I'm definitely gonna take this back, and try to implement it.

- Well, so when I think about who attends a four year institution in our state, only about 22% of kids in North Carolina graduate from high school every year and obtain a four year degree by the time they're 26-years-old.

So that's a pretty small amount.

When I was at Western Governor's University North Carolina, which is a nonprofit, 100% online university that primarily serves working adults.

Every student has a mentor.

It is a university designed to meet the needs of someone who is working, not just part-time but full-time.

Most of their students work full-time.

And so I think that it's possible to do online virtual education really well.

WGU's been doing it for a long time.

And I think that that kind, we're inching towards that in North Carolina with Project Kittyhawk, towards a non-profit online university presence.

We just we need to get there quicker.

- Madam, what is your core strategy around teacher vacancy, and increasing pay and benefit?

- So right now our teacher attrition in North Carolina is very stable.

So when we look at the question of have more teachers left since before the pandemic, the answer is actually no.

Teachers are not abandoning this profession.

Our challenge is we don't have enough young people choosing to go into this field.

They're not enrolling in our educator prep programs.

One of the things that we need to do is be more competitive across the board with teacher education salaries.

We have fallen behind in our region, and we will be asking the general assembly to just increase teacher pay across the board, so we can be more competitive.

But the other thing that we need to do is in order to attract this generation of young people, education has to be a field with a pathway to career advancement.

That needs to be something besides going into administration.

There needs to be more flexibility in the job, there needs to be a pathway to career advancement.

And we know that our attrition numbers are actually higher for our beginning teachers.

We need to provide more supports for our beginning teachers in the form of professional development, mentoring, et cetera.

So when I think about what we need to do about teacher vacancies, attracting new teachers, it does have to do with re-imagining the way we compensate teachers.

We need to compensate teachers for the impact they have in the classroom.

We need to pay them more for the leadership roles that they take on.

- And not just the incremental increases, but is someone in this country doing that well that you point to as a model?

- Well, we've got some large city districts that are doing this kind of pay for impact, where they have differentiated pay based on leadership roles that teachers have while they stay in the classroom.

But we have fallen just in our teacher pay in general, in the rankings so to speak, of how do we stack up in the southeast?

We're inching towards the bottom in the southeast, and so we need to get that pay up.

- And we've got less than a minute left, so I'm sorry I'm not gonna be able to throw it to you over there, Cecilia.

But just very quickly, Madam Superintendent, do you feel, and especially given another pretty epic budget surplus that the general assembly in North Carolina will relent towards some type of teacher pay increase this time?

- I would certainly hope that they will look at making North Carolina more competitive in the southeast.

But in addition, we're going to be asking for more funding that would help us pay for pilots to pilot a new teacher compensation model that rewards teachers for those extra responsibilities they take on.

- Superintendent Truitt, thank you again for being on the program, making the trip.

Nice to see you, ma'am.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, good to see ya.

Dr. Hill, thank you.

- Thank you.

Welcome.

Please come back.

- Will do.

Cecilia, that's not just for him.

Please come back as well.

- Certainly.

Thank you so much.

Until next week, I'm Chris William.

We hope your business is good and that you have a good weekend.

Good night.

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