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Mother’s Day was Sunday, a day set aside to honor the women we should have been honoring every day. My mother and grandmother have been gone from this world for more than eight years now, but not a day goes by when they’re not on my mind. Absence can indeed make the heart grow even fonder of those you love.
Simply put, moms are the best. Make sure your mom knows that, too.
Speaking of the best, the good folks with Business for Educational Success & Transformation – better known as Best N.C. – have released their 2025 state education fact book. BusinessNC.com pointed out a number of interesting items that stand out this year.
The report questions the value of a North Carolina high school diploma, specifically about whether it tells anyone the bearer’s ready for the world of work or higher education. While the four-year graduation rate for the Class of 2024 was 87%, just 36% met the state’s “college and career readiness” benchmarks on their end-of-grade tests.
In addition, just 40% earned an ACT score of 19 or better. That benchmark would have qualified them for admission to a UNC system university during the 2024-25 academic year if they fell short of the system’s 2.5 minimum high school grade point average.
“The integrity of North Carolina’s high school diploma is called into question when high school graduation rates are compared with ACT scores and end-of-course exam proficiency,” Best NC says. Naturally, instead of pushing for educational excellence, the UNC system is lowering the minimum ACT to 17 for the 2026-27 academic year and beyond.
Fall 2024 acceptance rates across the UNC system averaged 75% for students from traditional high schools, 76% from charter schools and 72% from private schools. However, the 134 “cooperative innovative high schools” – otherwise known as early colleges, like Tri-County in Peachtree – average an 83% admissions rate.
First-year college GPAs in the UNC System are highest for private-school graduates (3.09 as of fall 2023). Meanwhile, the six-year graduation rate was lowest for charter-school alumni (66%) as of 2024.
Best NC is best known around the Capitol for weighing in on K-12 teacher-pay issues, specifically for arguing for a flattening of the pay scale so teachers get to the top of it earlier in their careers. The fact book says after adjusting for inflation, the average state-paid K-12 teacher salary fell to $58,292 in 2023 dollars. It peaked in 2019-20 at $66,200.
However, that’s just salaries. Best NC points out elsewhere that insurance and retirement benefits for teachers cost the state another 45 cents per dollar of salary. And benefits spending grew faster (88%) over the decade ending in fiscal 2023-24 than did spending on salaries (33%).
Allowing educators to retire with
full benefits after 30 years is costing taxpayers more, while taking qualified people out of the field in their 50s, when they should be in the prime of their careers.
For Cherokee County, the fact book released these details on public schools:
- There are 3,001 students in 2024-25, a 3% decrease from five years before.
- A staggering 36% of students are considered chronically absent, while 25 students – less than 1% – are homeless.
- It cost $14,972 to educate each local student in 2023-24.
- Only 24% of those students were considered college or career ready after graduating from high school.
Cherokee County and North Carolina have so many positive things going on that it would be a shame to watch that progress get halted because we didn’t put enough focus on education and ended up dumbing down the next generations.
David Brown is publisher of the Cherokee Scout. Call him at 828-837-5122 or email dbrown@cherokeescout.com.