Our Wake County Board of Education is promising to make the changes needed to the new school assignment plan so that it provides good educational choices for every student - a difficult but important task. Our students can't wait till next year for the board to get it right. They can't come back and do over third grade or sixth or ninth when the plan improves.
The board also has the immediate responsibility to secure - even demand - adequate funding from the local, state and federal levels for this school system. Thanks to outstanding teachers - and luck - student success has outperformed the inadequate funding, so far.
In 2011, according to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, Wake County's per pupil funding was ranked No. 102 out of 115 school districts in a state that is 49th out of 50 states in funding! We wouldn't accept our student SAT and EOG scores to be in the bottom 11 percent in a state that is in the bottom 4 percent. Does that bottom-of-the-barrel funding level reflect our community values? No!
