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State Education Vision Statement The vision statement opens by highlighting “the state’s constitutional commitment to education and emphasizes the state’s responsibility for assuring a strong and coherent system that serves all students and that is geared toward the promotion of the public interest.” According to the vision statement, the SBE seeks to foster “both a spirit of individual freedom and a sense of common purpose” by providing children with “the opportunity to maximize their potential and pursue their personal dreams and aspirations” through such benefits as “the opportunities to attend post-secondary education, enhanced employment opportunities, higher earnings, better mental and physical health, greater political, social and cultural awareness and a higher quality of life.” The statement goes on to tout the importance of “various stakeholders—students, teachers, administrators, parents, state and district policymakers, the business community and others, schools and universities—to work together in the pursuit of common goals” that “justify the use of taxpayer dollars.” The vision outlined by the SBE in the statement includes a recognition that “diverse and innovative means” are necessary to deliver quality educational opportunities to all students. While traditional public schools “offer a wide range of content that serves the needs of students with varying academic and career/technical interests,” the statement also recognizes the benefit of a public education system offering “students and parents the opportunity to make choices among a variety of schooling options with differing missions and educational philosophies.” In particular, the SBE’s statement looks to charter schools, virtual public schools, and other innovative forms of education as “sources of experimentation and innovation” to “provide quality educational alternatives.” On the topic of alternative public schools, the statement agrees that such “schools have a legitimate claim on taxpayer funds to the extent that they further the overall purposes of the state education system. In practical terms, this means these options must be accessible to all students and held to the same high standards of academic, fiscal and other forms of accountability as traditional public schools.” The statement concludes by asserting “some form of coordination between [private and public schools] is appropriate.” It also notes that any attempts to offer greater parental choice in education through the use of vouchers or tax credits for non-public education should mean that “private and religious schools benefitting from such funds would need to be incorporated far more explicitly into the public school system.” In a statement issued on October 5, one of the leading school-choice organizations in the State, Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina (PEFNC), commended the SBE’s statement for its recognition of “a symbiotic relationship” between traditional and non-traditional public schools. While celebrating North Carolina’s “long history of supporting educational options,” PEFNC reiterated that much work remains to expand school choice to meet the needs of North Carolina students. “[W]e still need to work towards ensuring that this partnership be one that is mutually beneficial for each educational model,” PEFNC said. “Each one – including our traditional public schools – helps to support our shared responsibility to fully educate not just some of our children, but all of them.” Related resources: Copyright © 2012. North Carolina Family Policy Council. All rights reserved.
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