North Carolina

North Carolina tax reformers just getting started

By Chris Andriesen
09/07/2013
North Carolina is gearing up for another reform effort to enhance the state’s competitiveness. This year, political leaders overhauled North Carolina’s tax environment. Beginning in 2014, the state’s progressive income tax will be replaced with a lower, more competitive flat rate income tax. And the new flat rates are scheduled to decrease even more over the...

Myth of cream-skimming

08/27/2013
The lowest-performing public school students are the most likely to use and benefit from school choice programs according to a new study on Florida’s Tax Credit Scholarship Program. In fact, 27.9 percent of students who participated in the program were in the bottom fifth of their prior public school’s mathematics test score distribution. These findings fly in...

TAGS: school choice, vouchers

Brady proposes voucher plan for displaced CPS students

08/20/2013
The parents of the 30,000 displaced Chicago Public Schools, or CPS, students’ who will be attending new schools this fall are worried about their children’s futures. These fears are reasonable – what parent wouldn’t we be concerned about having their child walk to school along a Safe Passage route that was recently the scene of...

North Carolina budget ends master’s degrees pay

08/14/2013
Studies have shown that paying teachers for earning a masters’ degree is one of the worst ways to spend money in education. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said as much in a 2010 speech: “Doing more with less will likely require reshaping teacher compensation to do more to develop, support and reward excellence and effectiveness,...

TAGS: masters degree, North Carolina

North Carolina ends teacher tenure

08/07/2013
  North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed a landmark budget bill last week – one that is full of education reforms, including the end of teacher tenure in the state. Tenure doesn’t guarantee a teacher a job for life. But it does make it much more difficult for a district to let go of a...

TAGS: North Carolina

North Carolina abandons progressive income tax to create jobs and opportunity

By Benjamin VanMetre
07/22/2013
North Carolina lawmakers reached an agreement last week to overhaul the state’s tax environment. The state made a lot of changes to its tax structure, but the biggest reforms included reducing North Carolina’s corporate income tax rate and exchanging the state’s progressive tax structure in favor of a flat tax. Gov. Pat McCrory provided the...