North Carolina Education Cabinet

Vision

North Carolina will be the education leader not just in the Southeast or in the nation,

but in the world – with every North Carolina graduate earning a place of honor, prosperity

and service in our society.

Student Achievement

Theory of Action

Community:TeachersParents

Students Businesses Job Creators

Supports,Incentives &

Measurement

The Five Pathways for NC Education

Globally-Competitive North Carolina Standards

The Five Pathways for North Carolina Education

Prosperity and Jobs for Graduates

A Rewarding Career for Teachers and Principals

Joy of Reading and Math for Every Child

Excellent Innovative Learning Options for Families

Cost Effectiveness for Taxpayers

Prosperity and Jobs for GraduatesTalent for North Carolina Business

What we have: • Governor’s Career and College Pathways for high school graduates• Strong community college and university system• Early College, STEM, and other innovations in K-12• Business involvement, asking for more prepared workforce

What we need: • Seamless pathways that break down traditional barriers for student achievement.

Replace walls and textbooks with digital online solutions.• Dramatically increase number of Associates and Bachelors degrees• Dramatically increase workforce-approved certificates and degrees• Businesses directly informing the pathways and promising to interview and hire

North Carolina graduates at every level• Research grants that convert to patents and entrepreneurial start-up

A Rewarding Career for Teachers and Principals

What we have: • Pockets of excellence• Governor’s advocacy for testing relief• Teacher pay among lowest in the nation• Lack of meaningful recognition or rewards for excellence

What we need: • An opportunity culture for teachers and principals• All students have excellent teachers and leaders in charge of their learning• Fewer and more meaningful assessments that drive and improve classroom practice• Measures of effectiveness based on multiple measures including student achievement• Innovative, revenue-neutral ways to dramatically increase teacher salaries• Meaningful rewards for our most effective educators• Job-embedded professional learning, led by accountable, excellent teachers

Joy of Reading and Math for All

What we have: • Governor’s Early Learning/Pre-K Budget recommendations• Smart Start and other early learning legacies• Excellent Public Schools Act

What we need: • Excellent early education options for all students that result

in every North Carolina child reading by end of 3rd grade• Meaningful and reliable measures of literacy progress• Support for teachers to reach this goal

Excellent Innovative Learning Options for Families

What we have: • Innovation Act• Strong community college and university system• Early College, STEM, and other innovations in K-12• Growing charter movement

What we need: • A high quality innovative choice for every family• Policy that supports expansion of high quality charter schools with a focus on

excellence and diverse student populations • A digital E-Learning agenda that can be accessed by students from early

learning to adulthood • Public-private partnerships that incentivize and reward innovation zones

Cost Effectiveness for Taxpayers

What we have: • Siloes, with pockets of excellence, but also considerable inefficiencies• A budget process where the education entities from Early Learning to K-

12 to Community Colleges to UNC often have competing and overlapping interests

What we need: • Practices and policies that reward and scale the things that work, and

eliminate those that do not• Shared budget in the next legislative session for some or even all

education initiatives • Ultimately, we should move to establish a zero to 20 system in North

Carolina

Work Plan and ScheduleJune – September 2013

October 2013

November 2013 – March 2014

April 2014

Cabinet members and Volunteer Work Groups develop concrete policies and expected outcomes for each pathway

Cabinet members present and approve outcomes and policy recommendations

Gather public input and support for policies and outcomes from a diverse cross- section of our community

Finalize goals and objectives for NC education to inform 2014 Legislative Session

Conclusion