Carolina Journal Radio No. 850: Poll projects close N.C. presidential race again in 2020

From Cherokee to current tagging from the largest city to the smallest town and from the statehouse into the schoolhouse Carolina Journal radio your weekly news magazine discussing North Carolina's most of public policy events and issues welcome to Carolina Journal radio I Mitch go guy during the next hour, Donna Martinez and I will explore some major issues affecting our state as students head back to college campuses across North Carolina. A report raises concerns about political bias in schools of education, you learn details. Lawmakers recently debated a proposal to allow North Carolinians to write off gambling losses when paying state income taxes. You'll hear the pros and cons.

A key player in UNC Chapel Hill's paper classes scandal recently took her story to Capitol Hill to hear the message she shared with federal lawmakers and will examine the ongoing debate about the starting dates for public school calendars across North Carolina. Those topics are just ahead. First, Donna Martinez joins us and she has the Carolina Journal headline in a little more than a year North Carolina will again find itself in the national spotlight. The classic battleground state in the 2020 presidential election.

Several of the Democratic primary candidates have already a campaign in our state.

As has Pres. Trump a new poll by Harper polling for the civic toss Institute gives us a snapshot of what would happen if the election were held today Rick Henderson is editor-in-chief of Carolina Journal. He's here to look at the latest data Rick welcome back to the show. Thanks so let's talk first about the presidential race. Pres. Trump housing match up with some of these key Democratic candidate still believed, but within the margin of error of all the closest one. Interestingly enough, is VP Joe former VP Joe Biden would come within one percentage point of defeating present trumpets 45 to 44% Bernie Sanders two points down Elizabeth Warren three cowboy Harris six again all in the margin of error but still very close race. As we have expected, and the more interesting thing to look for overtime is not necessarily what the numbers are because election is not being held today, your wife, but how the trend likes and that's the interesting thing we know that in 2016. The president one North Carolina, many folks thought that he would lose North Carolina. But he pulled it out, but it wasn't a huge huge victory on a number of states were won by just a few thousand votes.

So at this point.

Anyway, it it kind of feels like it's 2016.

Again yeah really doesn't it. So it is interesting because resident will be certainly appearing here numerous times the it also feels like 2016. Because you see in the two open congressional races that are going on right now the third District in the ninth District Republican candidates for or tying themselves closely as possible.

Pres. Trump and their Democratic opponents also tied the Candace is closely positive as possible to Pres. Trump in a negative way.

And so he is still the main issue the 2020 campaign question about that. He's the dominant issue that we saw recently that the current Lieut. Gov. of North Carolina. Dan Forrester officially kicked off his campaign to be the Republican nominee for governor now. Presumably Roy Cooper will will officially say he wants to run for reelection and will be the nominee of his party interesting in this poll from Harper polling that they looked at a group of people that could cross lines.

They could be Donald Trump voters and also Roy Cooper voters right those it would if they broke this down regionally. It would be interesting because one would think that those voters somewhere between eight and half 12 1/2%. Most likely are concentrated in the eastern part of North Carolina. These are the old yellow dog Democrats that would on the state level vote for a Democrat, even if it was yellow dog but when the presidential election comes along there open to voting for Republican because I think the national Democratic Party is too far left is an issue of job security and in the president's focus on what he calls America first, and he's now implementing trade policies that are protectionist up all under the moniker of crime to protect your jobs from from being moved overseas free-trade is there been a popular issue a wildly popular issue at any time, but it certainly is not been a really popular issue in North Carolina. North Carolina has relied very heavily on all the support of different trade protections and things like that to attempt to keep various industries healthy so from farming to two manufacturing and things like that. The what may be an interesting change in dynamic is the fact that the presence trade policies has led to some backlash and that some of our trading partners are responding by imposing tariffs of their owner banning the importation of US products that seems to be affecting agriculture, but the farmer still generally speaking, think that that's okay because the president seems to be fighting for them. This way they look at so-and-so is interesting viewpoint and is quick. There will also be interesting to see if that actually holds over time. If the back-and-forth on trade as a kind of impact on whether or not the harvest of salt and there was also some money that was appropriated to give to farmers that were adversely affected by some of those trade policies so that that health trust help some farmers. It's the question is more North Carolina's issue. Tobacco is not something is covered by that. So for tobacco farmers. I get no help whatsoever from Rick.

I think it's fascinating on this this potential Trump Cooper motor because, for example, if you're Gov. Cooper and you're out campaigning.

Presumably you would be saying negative things about Donald Trump about the Republican president because you would want your fellow Democrat whoever the nominee is to be elected president. So how you walk that line if you know that there is pretty good percentage there at single digits, but that's enough to turn an election right.

How do you not turn someone off. That's gonna be tough on because this issue. The governor faces a lot of different areas of results.

He says that he's against corporate tax breaks or tax or tax cuts for corporations at the same time he's handing out corporate welfare companies. He likes all over the place. You could say what is he is opposed to the budget that was passed by the GOP lie Gen. assembly because it doesn't do enough to give teachers raises and things like that but he veto the budget and the longer that that budget stays in active, the longer it's going to take those teacher pay raises, that are in there from taking effect. So I mean it's it is a difficult position to always be in opposition of everything the Republicans do were seemingly so they do work on some issues, but the acts that constantly do the belt little Sen. no thing of the recent Helms Gov. know may or may not be a very effective election strategy and especially if a Dan Forrester or whoever the Republican nominee eventually is comes forward with a positive agenda. In fact, we know that test state representative Holly Grange also seeking publican party's nomination for governor so that certainly is not a lock for the Lieut. Gov. to end up being the nominee you mentioned issues that the governor and the legislature are disagreeing on perhaps working on some things as well. We know that down the discussion over expanding Medicaid in North Carolina something they are definitely not the same page about that is been a key issue as to why we have had this big kerfuffle over a new state budget.

This poll I Harper polling actually asked North Carolinians said do you want to expand Medicaid endeavor very interesting as people learn more about what Medicaid would do write the general question, you favor Medicaid expansion, North Carolina's 57% favorable 27% unfavorable. But once the questioners start pouring down a little bit into the details of what it would entail Francis the cost and just a minor detail right and that the most the people receiving Medicaid would be healthy working age adults without children then the other than the people who said they would be likely to support. It goes down almost even so, it almost is is is a split question for the Republican Party asked Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse put it this way.

Consider people for free ice cream free beer to three day work week yellow yard till I find out what costs and Rick we can't in this interview without talking about a fascinating result in this poll having to do with the question of socialism which we are now hearing a lot about from candidates who espouse that kind of belief system. We now know that here in North Carolina. Fewer people are opposing socialism than they did earlier in the year. What you make of that. Well part of it again is the fact that candidates on the Democratic side are*saying or saying things making socialism still really nice for making people think that it's is just simply the kind of generous welfare state that Takes Pl. in Europe or they don't pave the road for us largely that I would think when they don't know really site know this Venezuelan North Korea, that's that socialism right there that we been talking with Rick Henderson who was editor-in-chief thinking stay with this much more Carolina journal radio to come in just a moment tired of fake names tired of reporters with political axes to grind. What you need to be reading Carolina journal, honest, uncompromising, old-school journalism, you expect and you need even better, the monthly Carolina journal is free to subscribers sign up@carolinajournal.com you'll receive Carolina journal newspaper in your mailbox each month.

Investigations into government spending revelations about boondoggles.

The powerful leaders are and what they're doing in your name and with your money.

We shine a light on it all with the stories and angles. Other outlets barely cover but there's a bonus I print newspapers published monthly by our daily news site gives you the latest news each and every day lot onto Carolina journal.com once, twice, even three times a day won't be disappointed. It's fresh news if you'd like a heads up on the daily news sign up for daily email do that Carolina journal.com Carolina journal rigorous unrelenting old-school journalism. We hold government accountable for you.

Welcome back to Carolina journal radio I Michiko guy schools of education throughout the University of North Carolina prepare many of the teachers that work with public school students across our state. That's why our next guest's latest research is so important and also disturbing Jay shall and is director of policy analysis of the James G. Martin Center for academic renewal in the title of that research report is the politicization of University schools of education, the long march through the education schools look back to the program. J thanks Mitch thanks for having me. So you're looking at something that people think about education schools might not think about and that is not how were teaching our students are, how were teaching our teachers, but the politics involved. Why is this something that that you wanted to look into. Well, we've been aware of it for quite some time.

I mean, one of the problems with education schools is a sort of fall between the cracks.

A lot of people tend to analyze and look at and critique the actual K-12 education systems with the same time they look at universities, but education schools are where the ideas for Macadamia get kind of put through the meatgrinder and developed into something that gets used in the K-12 system and a lot of these ideas as anybody familiar with academia would understand are not always the best for the country and your report suggests that there is a lot of politics involved in these ideas and how they get filtered to these future teachers at our school. Without a doubt, there is there has long been a push to make our schools of vehicle two. We change society and this goes back all the way to the at least the early 1900s on the progressive era had all kinds of different schemes in which they were going to re-create America through the education system and they were always overtly political.

But what they did is they kind of scraped out all the traditional Americanism out of the school systems, and leave it open for a much more radical group to come through and this is not on one hand, it's a very organic thing. On another thing some people have directly targeted our education systems for politicization for a long time now you have a very thorough report were only going to barely scratch the surface but blade you look into and what you find will one thing I tried to do as I tried to look at the genesis of how it became politicized. It went through. As I said the progressive era then it went through a process where in it really didn't affect the schools initially but there with the idea of cultural Marxism in which you are no longer going to overtake the country through revolution revolution of the proletariat and you are going to overtake it through the education system and popular culture and one of the things one of the most important one of the most dramatic processes that came out of that was the multicultural movement in which many of the politicized methods are implemented in our schools.

In looking at the schools that you did for this research is an issue that has gotten worse over time. It's much worse.

I think anybody who is aware of what's going on today.

Just reading the youth daily newspapers every once in a while you're going to see some outrageous incident of something like wearing the Seattle school system. They're starting to introduce referral while they've been injured introducing children to transgender tourism, even as early as kindergarten on these kinds of things appear all the time. You know, they appear in one school district keep here and something else appears in another there fairly recently in the last year. I think the way counties looked at a system of changing the way they discipline students to have fewer suspensions because there has been such a racial imbalance in the number of suspensions may claim that this is unfairly hurting the students who are punished because they're not in school but to do anything else on may unfairly hurt the better behaved students because now they have disruptive students in the classroom more so there's so yeah it's it's there is the outrage of the week and I expected to get worse and worse and worse. We are chatting with Jay shall and he is director of policy analysis at the James G. Martin Center for academic renewal. The research report were discussing is called the politicization of University schools of education J I'm guessing that as you did this research. It didn't really surprise you because you been following this issue for a while but were there any things that you found that you said even I didn't know was this bad know, but that's because I expected the worst one of the I me my main method in which I've used in other areas as well was to look at syllabi course syllabi for the books and articles that are assigned to education school students and I was coming Ike's hikes pretty much found what I expected that a large share of the books are being used. The books and articles being used in education. Schools are heavily politicized.

Not all my fat I looked at three different schools of the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina and the University of Wisconsin in Michigan actually was much less politicized, at least overtly, than the other two work, but I looked at the syllabi and to discover, you know who the most frequently assigned authors are and the single most is a woman named Gloria Ladson Billings who is a critical theory of critical race theorist and this me and her. The line I quote from her is from Marcus Garvey the back to Africa guy and she said that education schools should be all race all the time, I might not have the quote exactly right, but something along those lines. So that's the single most assigned author in across all three of these education schools will that isn't disturbing enough in and of itself in the brief amount of time that we have left for folks who are not to be able to read through the whole report and just want to get kind of the bottom line message.

What is it that you hope people will get out of this research. The one thing that changing the education schools is imperative and if it can't be done, and I wonder if it can be done then we have to start looking for ways around them because as children you know as the education system goes, so goes the next generation and were seeing things like a very favorable attitudes toward socialism in the new generation and this is and other things they they many of the students have a negative look at the United States, and this is something that's being directly pushed in our schools of education and then down into the K-12 system. Jay shall he is director of policy analysis at the James G. Martin Center for academic renewal J thanks much going thank you Mitch Lattimore on Carolina journal radio just a moment. If you have freedom we got great news to share with you now. You can find the latest news, views, and research from conservative groups across North Carolina all in one place North Carolina conservative.com it's one stop shopping for North Carolina's freedom movement@northcarolinaconservative.com.

You'll find links to John Locke foundation blogs on the days news Carolina journal.com reporting and quick takes Carolina journal radio interviews TV interviews featuring CJ reporters and Locke foundation analysts, opinion pieces and reports on higher education from the James G. Martin Center for academic renewal, commentary and polling data from the scimitar's Institute and news and views from the North Carolina family policy Council. That's right, all in one place North Carolina conservative.com that's North Carolina spelled out conservative.com North Carolina conservative.com. Try it today. North Carolina is changing not just day-to-day but outward to our minute to minute. Even 2nd to 2nd, how can you keep up with the changes, especially the ones that affect you, your family, your home, your job, make the John Locke foundation and Carolina journal part of your social media diet on Facebook like the John Locke foundation like Carolina. Journal follow us on Twitter at John Locke in C and at Carolina journal news, insights and analysis you'll find nowhere else.

Thanks to the experts at the John Locke foundation and thanks to the first-class investigative reporting of Carolina journal.

Don't wait for the morning newspaper. Don't wait for the evening news if it's happening now it's happening here the John Locke foundation and Carolina journal.

Have you covered with up to the second information like us on Facebook the John Locke foundation and Carolina journal follow us on Twitter at John Locke NC and at Carolina journal. Who knew you could shop and invest in freedom at the same time it is true online shopping is now a great way to support the John Locke foundation just shop using the Amazon smile program and designate the John Mott foundation to receive a portion of your purchase amount that's right you shop Amazon donates money to pass the John Locke foundation hears how long time to smile.amazon.com Amazon smile is the same Amazon you know same products same prices.

But here's what's better. Amazon donates 0.5% of the price of your eligible Amazon smile purchases to the John Locke foundation to try it. Be sure to designate us as the nonprofit you want to support. It's that easy. So now not only will you enjoy what you buy. You also support freedom.

Don't forget log on to smile.amazon.com today, something nice and help defend freedom, help support the John Mott foundation will go back Carolina journal radio I Michiko guy should North Carolinians be able to write off gambling losses when they pay state income taxes Republican state representative Keith Kidwell think so. He explained why. During a recent debate seeking to do with this amendment is to restore the tax deduction that was previously permitted in the state of North Carolina and is currently permitted by the federal government in relationship to gambling winnings and gambling losses. Gambling losses have always been permitted in the past to offset to the extent of your gains.

This is not based on professional gamblers.

This is based on people who most likely have gone to a casino put money into a slot machine that I can give you a realistic example I had a client who actually won about $300,000 over insured. But in order. We met $300,000 a put $280,000 into the machines to get the same North Carolina actually tax that person on the entire $300,000. They were not allowed to offset the gains by the 280,000 they put into wind Mall. The problem with that many go to the North Carolina Constitution only income is taxed very basic math total winnings, you subtract the losses you tax the difference Democratic representative Greg Meyer opposed Kidwell's proposal.

The challenge with this is that it really breaks a fundamental tenet of how we do taxation, you know, we have an income tax, but we only tax what you spam through the form of a sales tax and we don't allow you to write off things that you spend money on. Even if there are things that you perceive to be a lawless if you make money For Your Income.

Whether It's Demoing Earnings or Money to Your Different Paycheck, Etc. but We're Gonna Start to Write off Expenses on Things That You Throw Your Money Away, Whether It Be Gambling or New Bio or You Buy a Car or You Buy Something Else and Submitting a Money Threat. You Don't Get to Write off All the Losses on Those Things, Opposition to Kidwell's Plan Came from the Political Right, As Well As the Left Republican Representative Larry Pittman Explained Why He Planned to Vote No on the Respective Representative Will Think to What He Sought It from the Constitution Would Refer to Legitimate Business or Legitimate Purchases. Outsourcing I Will Never Agree to Consider Any County Gambling Is Legitimate and so I Think You Fiercely Responsible Is to Throw Your Money Away Gambling and You Take a Loss on That You Should've Known Better. Before You Do This Your Tough Look at the State House Voted down the Proposed Tax Write off Her Gambling Losses. The Idea Could Face a Future Study Term with More Carolina Journal Radio in a Moment Where Dabbling down on Freedom at Carolina Journal Radio Were Proud to Bring You Stories That Impact Your Life and Your Wallet. And Now Get Twice As Much Freedom When You Also Listen to Our Podcast Headlock Available on ITunes and@johnlocke.org/podcast headlock is a little bit different. It's a no holds barred discussion that challenges softheaded ideas from the left and the right, like Carolina Journal radio headlock is smart and timely but with headlock you'll hear more about the culture wars and you get some more humor as well. We guarantee great information and a good time double down with that's listen to Carolina Journal radio each week and listen to headlock to remember, you can listen to headlock@johnlocke.org/podcast or subscriber download each week iTunes Carolina Journal radio and headlock just what you need to stay informed and stay entertained both brought to you in the name of freedom by the John Locke foundation. Welcome back Carolina Journal radio I Michiko guy one of the key figures in the UNC Chapel Hill paper class a scandal recently took her story to Capitol Hill.

Mary Willingham was an academic tutor for UNC athletes. She complained publicly that the University wasn't helping those athletes get a real education. Now she's sharing her concerns with members of Congress. I am reading and learning specialists.

I teach middle school students to read now it's the joy of my life to be back teaching kids to read when I went to the University of North Carolina as a learning specialist.

I didn't expect to have to teach kids to read those kids are a lot older even than the kids I teach now at middle school kids to learn to read in first or second grade, but another civil rights issue in our country is not teaching all of our children in this country to read and not teaching them to read. Continuing at each grade level and somehow were okay with that but at the University of North Carolina.

I had six athletes who are so underprepared for the coursework they were working on reading reading letters and sounds. They didn't know they were just passed along and we took them in the front door of the institution and promised them in exchange for their talent that we are going to provide them with a world-class education does it sound possible was impossible for me every year and every semester more and more students would turn up in my office asking if I could teach them because I'd been teaching one of their teammates. The students had real hopes and dreams for a better tomorrow. Their families were counting on them not just to be athletes professional athletes, which of course many of them believed they would be, but we know that that's not the case.

Willingham highlighted several you would see examples one of my students that comes to mind wanted to be a business major. She needed to learn to read first she needed glasses first. That was a problem for the NCAA because it was something that they might not provide. How could that be all she wanted to do was go back to her hometown to her home county and open up a YMCA someday when she was finished with her education. She couldn't. She couldn't even apply to our business school at Carolina because she would've needed a 3.0 GPA. She was still learning to read another student, a basketball player wanted to take Spanish. He was also learning to read and more importantly, he was starting to write. He had never written a sentence before in his life. He wanted take Spanish because he wanted to go back to California where he knew a lot of people who did speak Spanish and he wanted to be able to communicate with some of those friends that he made and he wanted to be a social worker.

Someday, so that he could help students like himself who struggled to learn to read and who his fifth-grade teacher. By the way told him that he would never learn to read that he should just keep playing football and basketball and that would be how he made his way in life. And finally I had a football player who told me that he lived in a car for at least seven years of his life.

He couldn't read property and go to school very much but Carolina led him in the front door and the NCAA and Carolina promised them something that we couldn't give him Willingham touted the struggling student athletes. These kids these young people were persistent and resilient.

They had grits like the kids I work with today on the west side of Chicago, who also want to play football and basketball real grits with such a great opportunity at our fingertips and we just let it slip away.

We all look the other way I can do that anymore. The paper class system was created at Carolina and lasted for more than two decades. That's how we kept athletes like this eligible because they were superstars. And that's how we kept them on the hardwood floors and on the field on game day. That's Mary Willingham former academic advisor for UNC student athletes speaking recently on Capitol Hill.

She turned next to her book devoted to the high profile academic and athletics scandal G. Smith, my co-author and I capture this system of academic and athletic eligibility and we really take it back to someone who we all know very well.

Famous for basketball Michael Jordan at Carolina was during the years just following him that this paper class system started. It started originally, like we all know as a research paper, an independent study paper in the major that you're going to take you maybe take one but our athletes would be put in three and four and then eventually they were just the independent study numbers those really high numbers in the colleges in the different majors they were any course in African-American studies of all majors that's put all our black athletes in African-American studies because that's what they want to study. There is a civil rights issue are so many there so many here to talk about these classes.

These paper classes.

They didn't require you to go to class didn't require you to relieve into any work you were just given a prompt and it could be for any class in the core curriculum that you needed or could be for your major fear in African-American studies major, but some students would have 1112 I think the winner is 18 paper classes on his transcript a basketball player Willingham reminded her audience that the scandal did not necessarily lead to any sweeping changes at UNC.

We had an investigator coming and and actually during my time in there when the University of North Carolina was trying to hide all of this the cost of about $19 million to try to hide this paper. Class system of eligibility and of course no one, not a single administrator coach was fired and then the NCAA looks the other way they can figure out what to do so to me the whistleblowing.

The writing still teaching reading for me it's all about if we the promise students a real education, then we absolutely must deliver a real education in the very least pay, the athletes absolutely. But for me, education is what will break the cycle of poverty that a lot of these young players that I worked with came from. And guess what, they went right back to those situations in the NCAA and universities don't want us to talk about that no research has been done on what happens to these players after they leave with a degree or half without a degree. What should UNC your other universities do to address the problem doing some developmental or remedial work with athletes which we heard just give a few extra years so so the students I talked about that I believe deserve the kind of education that they wanted the major that they wanted. If they had been able to stick around for a few more years. I think with some really good tutoring in really good health so resources. We also talked about resources for students that they would be able to do it.

Maybe it would take seven years or eight years. But look, you're all a lot of you are most of your really young in this room. He lived to be like 100. So what's the difference if's college takes you eight years. I mean, you've got lots of time so so that I don't think that's a problem and so that would be one example. And in the other example would be due.

Pushing back on admissions to say you know you that you can't bring in students that are more than we say one standard deviation below the students that you're bringing Enright to have highly competitive schools like you vying UNC and and then they lower that bar for the athletes, but there is no classes nest. Not all athletes but some of the athletes. Of course, and then there's no classes that that they are ready for his or underprepared for that academic rigor so if you push back on admissions then. My hope is now up back in K-12 is a teacher that they would then imagine this higher education. Schools of education, pushing back on K-12. Don't send us kids who are so far off the mark. That's Mary Willingham, the former academic tutor who played a key role in the recent academic and athletics scandal that you would see Chapel Hill. She discussed the scandal during a recent panel discussion on Capitol Hill overture, but for Carolina journal radio in a moment real influence.

You either have it or you don't and at the John Locke foundation we have it, you'll find our guiding principles in many of the freedom forward reforms of the past decade here in North Carolina.

So while others talk or complain or name call. We provide research solutions and hope our team analyzes the pressing issues of the day jobs, healthcare, education, and more.

We look for effective ways to give you more freedom, more options, more control over your life.

Our goal is to transform North Carolina into a growing, thriving economic powerhouse, the envy of every other state.

Our research is how policymakers make decisions that ensure you keep more of what you are. Expand your choice of schools for your kids.

Widen your job opportunities improve your access to doctors.

The recipe for stability and a bright future for truth for freedom for the future of North Carolina. We are the John Locke foundation. Welcome back to Carolina journal radio time Dina Martina's the roads are about to get busier across the state. As kids start back to school but some might not realize that there's a reason that schools that operate on a traditional calendar roughly 9 months on three months off all wait till the end of August to open is actually a law about this.

A law that some school districts have decided to defy Terry stoops is the vice president for research is also the director of education studies for the John Locke foundation. He's been following this very, very closely and joins us now to talk about the new school year. Terry welcome back in Q what is the law about when schools can open while the law of four schools is that they may not open before the Monday closest to August 26 and this was.

This is been something that's been implemented, North Carolina for for some time that there has been start date and end dates that has been dictated by the state legislature were one of just a few states that has such a rigid calendar law and so the fact that there are some school districts that are now taking measures to try to skirt the law isn't surprising at all. Why in the world do we need a state law when school would open the argument is that work toward a state and this will give predictability to the tourism industry for having summer employees if if school starts in their mind. If school starts to early, then there will be some issues with them being able to obtain the day labor necessary to work in the in the tourist industry in the summer so they are the main opponents any changes in the calendar law. They're the ones that are really talking to legislators about so the what they believe to be the economic damage that would occur if we change the calendar law so that districts would have the flexibility to choose their own start and end dates that wouldn't it simply make more sense that let's say a school district in the western part of the state might have particular needs of the community or norms or something like that or even at the tourism industry would be different in the western part of the state versus say the central part of the state or the coast doesn't just make more sense that people in their local communities could decide what works best. So that's what so I have been talking about for many years and of the members of a organization called local and disorganization is made up of get this the John Locke foundation and the North Carolina Association of educators as well as some other groups who all believe in calendar, flexibility that will approach it for different reasons. Some of the groups on the left are concerned about summer learning loss.

They think that if there was a calendar that constricted the summer months that students are often enrolled dress summer learning loss for me it's all about freedom and flexibility for locals.

You know you have as you said districts in the western part of the state that receive tremendous amounts of snow. I would like to have more days built into their calendar to deal with those issues and you have needs in the central part of the states in the eastern part of the state that vary as well. Certainly there is nothing that would prevent those counties in the eastern part of the state of adopting sort of the calendar that we have right now. If we give them the flexibility to do so to help out the tourism industry there will be no restrictions that I would believe should be put in the place for the school districts to decide when school starts when school ends. This is been discussed for several years now, and we learned this year through the reporting of and DOS Helms that there are several pretty big school districts in one area of the state that we know for sure they've decided to just kind of throw up their hands and say we don't care what this law says witches can open yell not on board with that approach, show me know the law is the law now let me just mention that if they did want to change their start and end date. They could've went to the state Board of Education and asked for the state board to give them permission to do this in the state board gives permission to wake County, for example, for their year-round calendar and gives permission to other schools, especially those that are aligned with the community colleges permission to change their schedule in order to open early so that there are some students who take classes both in the district and the community college have a similar schedule that they can follow. Unfortunately it it I don't think the best way to do it is just to ignore the law and to not go to the state board and get permission of the laws annoying. I think that there is a tremendous amount of support for giving local flexibility for the school calendar, but that doesn't mean that the law should just be ignored.

I think that probably the best way to do this is to go to the lawmakers. Specifically, in the sentence and show them just how much of a desire there is across the state to make this change did have an appetite to do that considering you mentioned the groups that are involved in in this organization. Local Army that spans the ideological and political spectrum right there. Does the North Carolina Senate. The leadership there realize that there's all the support for flexibility in that kind, the ones holding this up. I think they do. And the reason why is because every year, the members of the house file dozens of bills for school calendar flexibility both for the for the entire state and for the districts that are that they represent, so they know that there's an appetite to do this, their colleagues in the house are more than happy to try to get this type of legislation advanced in the general assembly of but unfortunately the tourism industry is very powerful, very well-funded and made their warnings about the economic damage that would occur and I and I don't believe it would occur. It scares a lot of members of the sentence and make some concerned that there would be economic repercussions that might lead to issues with being elected in the next election or murder.

Whatever their concerns may be with us or the economics of the of the issue you mentioned year-round schools so this ahead scratcher for me. If they are so much concerned about traditional school calendar schools not opening before August 26, then why can't a year-round school even exist. That's right the inmates. It is one of those mysteries. You know the idea that we have a rigid school calendar law is based on a rather antiquated model of the school calendar and it's not based on a rare encounter. I gotta make sure that people understand that but it's it's based on a calendar that assumed that schools did have air conditioning. So it's having them sit in a school house during the summer was not really conducive to good learning and that's right it's not, but we don't live in that world anymore and every school has air conditioning so it doesn't make sense that we would not have school were not allowed districts to start school. In this those summer months.

Just because we want to stick to this sort of antiquated calendar, but you know giving districts of flexibility to create the kind of calendar that will help students learn because in the end, this is all about student learning. Work should be all about student learning, giving them the flexibility to provide a calendar that's innovative and that advances student learning I think is the key to giving them this kind of flexibility and I hope that those in the Senate realize that when we give them to give districts a kind of flexibility they want their calendar.

It will help them raise achievement. That's all the time we have for the show this week. Hope you will join us again next week for another edition of Carolina Journal radio Carolina Journal radio is a program of the John Locke foundation to learn more about the John Locke foundation, including donations that support programs like Carolina Journal radio sending email to development John Locke or call 1866 Jay Leno info 166553466 Carolina Journal radio is a comfort engine of the John Locke foundation Carolina spring market maintaining and Carolina broadcasting system, Inc. all opinions expressed on this program are solely those did not merely reflect the opinions of advertisers or the station.

For more information about the show or other programs and services of the John Martin foundation John.toll-free at 866 JM would like to thank our wonderful radio affiliates across North Carolina and our sponsors. Carolina Journal radio. Thank you for listening.

Please join us again next week