During the June 22 meeting of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Public Education, a shared goal repeatedly emerged: Commission members want high-quality, actionable recommendations that can create meaningful impact for students and educators, and not lengthy reports that sit on a shelf.

“This is about a recommendation that we feel is fully actionable and will move the needle,” said Anne Faircloth, co-chair of the Commission and president of Buffalo Investments & Lafayette Farms. “I personally will not measure our success by the number of recommendations or the volume of pages we produce. It’s really about quality.” 

While North Carolina has many resources for educators and students, there are opportunities for improvement of the education system. The Friday Institute for Educational Innovation is guiding Commission members as they develop their recommendations with a framework that organizes them into three categories: reinscribe, reform and reimagine. This framework helps identify where North Carolina should continue investing, improve existing systems or pursue entirely new approaches. 

Reinscribe

When considering what practices in the current public education system to reinscribe, Commission members are identifying successful programs or strategies they might want to continue to support or scale throughout North Carolina.

In North Carolina, there are many successful programs that support and develop educators such as the Advanced Teaching Roles (ATR) program.. 

ATR enables local school administrative units to create innovative compensation models that allow highly effective classroom teachers to impact more students. During the 2024-25 school year, 26 public school units (PSUs/districts) had ATR programs in 400 schools. Combined, these PSUs employed 1,494 Advanced Teachers and supported 3,949 classroom teachers. Fifty-six percent of ATR schools were elementary schools. An evaluation from the Friday Institute reports several school- and teacher-level impacts of this program, including positive effects on students’ math and science test scores, lower turnover of Advanced Teachers and a strengthened school climate with increased collaboration.

During a teacher panel, Commission members heard from Stacey Wall, a multi-classroom leader educator at GR Edwards Elementary School with the ATR program in Nash County Public Schools. “I feel like I am the missing piece. I am the difference in implementation and not implementation,” said Wall. “You can provide the professional development, but without the coaching and the one-on-one support, it just doesn’t always happen…I wish I had the kind of support that my teachers receive.”

In addition to specific teacher support programs, other educators on the panel reinforced the idea that teacher effectiveness is strengthened by supportive working environments, access to meaningful professional learning, instructional support and mentoring. 

“The greatest predictor of student achievement is a high-quality teacher,” said Stephenie Logan, instructional facilitator at Lincoln Heights Environmental Connections Magnet Elementary. “The skills needed often do not come from a workshop but ongoing daily job-embedded coaching and collaboration.”

Educators on the panel reflected on the success of these programs and practices and encouraged Commission members to scale them statewide. 

Reform

The Commission may develop recommendations that reform aspects of public education. These recommendations would improve existing policies and programs. 

Commission members asked various questions during a presentation from Tom Tomberlin, senior director in the Office of Educator Preparation, Licensure, and Performance at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI), about the limitations of measuring teacher effectiveness, known as the Educator Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS). EVAAS is North Carolina’s official growth model used to measure teacher effectiveness annually for teachers who teach a state-tested subject (e.g., end of grade, end of course), K-2 reading or career-technical education. Approximately 40% of North Carolina’s teaching force receives an EVAAS score. In addition to the amount of teachers who are actually measured, existing measures do not provide a complete picture of educator quality. Scores are relative to each individual, do not tell how teachers as a whole are performing and do not indicate how a teacher has performed compared to the previous year. This discussion reflected broader questions regarding accountability, continuous improvement and educator development.

Another area for reform discussed was around the Science of Reading. North Carolina embraced the Science of Reading and set clear expectations for the evidence-based literacy instruction. While the foundation has been laid, sustained implementation has room for improvement. Educators on the panel expressed concerns about continuous implementation, teacher training, curriculum selection and extending support to students beyond third grade.

“I am so proud of North Carolina,” said Logan. “We have made significant progress in reading foundational skills. I see it in our classrooms, I see it in our data…learning goes beyond that [LETRS] training. They did their asynchronous learning, they did their virtual learning, but then practice takes someone to guide and keep accountable for that.”

The panel emphasized that implementation matters. Educators suggested that policy alone is insufficient without sustained support for those who are responsible for executing reforms in their classrooms. 

Reimagine

The Commission is also exploring ideas that move beyond improving current systems and instead reimagine how North Carolina attracts, develops and retains educators.

Reimagining could come in the form of combating teacher attrition. During Tomberlin’s presentation, he discussed North Carolina’s educator preparation programs (EPP), the teacher licensure process and teacher effectiveness. He highlighted attrition trends, noting the highest attrition rates in the teacher workforce: among beginning teachers and those with 28 years or more of experience. Both groups had an attrition rate of 15% to 20% during the 2024-2025 school year.

Commission members discussed ways to support beginning teachers, reduce barriers for those pursuing their licenses and retain veteran teachers.

“As a principal, I work very, very hard to retain my staff, to grow their talent, to develop their skills,” said Matthew Bristow-Smith, principal at Edgecombe Early College High School. “Often, those teachers that have been there 15, 20, 35 years, they become our lead teachers and our mentors. They carry a number of non-instructional responsibilities. And then when they approach retirement, we have that difficult conversation. ‘Matt, I love working here, but it financially doesn’t make sense for me not to retire and to go work somewhere else.’ And in almost every case, when we retire someone…it feels like we’re bleeding our best talent to other educational institutions.”

Research has found that experienced teachers are more likely to remain effective and engaged when provided opportunities to refine their practice and take on leadership roles. 

Connie Book, president of Elon University, discussed teacher retention in a small group discussion with Commission members.

“We focused on the barbell issue that we saw of new teachers and retention and keeping those at the retirement in the system—the exemplary teacher with more than 25 years of service,” said Book. “So we have some ideas about allowing teachers to be able to come back and teach with teacher pay while they collect their retirement.”

The teacher pipeline can also be strengthened by supporting alternatively licensed educators who have demonstrated effectiveness comparable to teachers entering through traditional pathways. Data from NCDPI shows that both pathways have similar early-career effectiveness but over time, residency licensed teachers who complete their programs have been found to be more effective than their traditional pathway beginning teachers. Tomberlin emphasized that while preparation and experience matter, the combination is greater than the sum of its parts. Educators in the teacher panel supported his point.

“I am standing here today not because I took a traditional path into education but because a residency program opened a door and a community of educators helped me walk through it, ” said Christopher McDaniel, a social studies teacher at Mineral Springs Middle School and a participant in the Winston Salem/Forsyth County Schools Teacher Residency program. “I didn’t become a teacher despite my story. I became a teacher because of it. Every challenge I faced helps me better understand the students sitting in my classroom today.” 

Next Steps

June’s Blue Ribbon Commission meeting began to show where Commission members are headed with their recommendations as they converge around the reinscribe/reform/reimagine framework. They are focused on identifying a meaningful direction that can strengthen educator effectiveness, improve student outcomes and build on North Carolina’s existing strengths while addressing persistent challenges. 

“The job that we have is so big that we better make sure we spend the time and energy on only those things that will move the needle,” said Allen E. Gant, Jr., chairman of Glen Raven, Inc. 

The next meeting of the Blue Ribbon Commission will be held virtually on July 27. During that meeting, Commission members will respond to key findings, evidence and member insights related to student advancement, teacher training and accountability and will begin to develop a focused set of recommendations.