Democratic State Rep Seeks Bipartisan Ideas for Schools

The Democratic state House representative for District 50 is chronicling his efforts to find common ground on education with conservative colleagues.

Rep. Graig Meyer recently wrote a series of three pieces for EdNC.org.

One column recounts a trip to Florida for the annual Excellence in Education summit created by former Gov. Jeb Bush’s foundation.

“I wanted to go because I was trying to work, as a Democrat to understand what Republicans are working on around state education policy, ” said Meyer, “ and see where I can find some common ground with them.”

Meyer said he found the experience both “challenging” and “rewarding,” and he wanted to document his experiences.

In the first of his series, Meyer talks about the challenges of finding common ground, and how he believes that can best be achieved.

“The second piece is a specific piece about our school grading policy of giving all schools a grade of A through F, and how I think we may improve upon that policy,” said Meyer, “based on things I’ve learned from states that have had more experience and from some Republican advocates, and what they’ve pushed for.

“So, it was a case where visiting with the Republican advocates actually changed my mind on something.”

For example, there’s the issue of the state’s grading system for schools. Meyer said he once considered the grading policy to be reductive, and not helpful.

“What changed my mind, and where I think there’s some common ground, is that I do think that it’s a low-cost or no-cost mechanism that could be used to give incentives or leverage for the states that encourage schools to improve in areas where we think it’s important for them to improve,” said Meyer.

Meyer said that one problem with North Carolina’s current grading system for schools is that not enough emphasis goes toward improving students that are falling behind.

His third piece, which came from that trip to Florida, is a critique of conservative school-choice ideology. That continues to be an area where Meyer has a big challenge in finding agreement across the iasle.

“Their policy prescriptions are really inadequate for making sure that we have high-performing public schools,” said Meyer.

Still, despite his assessment of an ideological new Republican majority in Raleigh that doesn’t seem terribly interested in compromise, Meyer said that recent conversations with conservatives on education have given him reason to believe there’s hope for progress.

“I do think that there are a lot of Republicans who really, truly want us to continue to have strong public schools that work for every child,” said Meyer.

Meyer will continue to blog for the online publication.

Democratic State Rep Seeks Bipartisan Ideas for Schools

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