schools

Education reform in North Carolina has a long history, but has shown mixed results at best. Despite recent improvements in some test scores, the state's public schools still deliver poor-quality services at excessive cost to large segments of the student population. Under the state's new ABC plan, nearly half of all public schools in 1996-97 failed to provide a year's worth of educational progress for a year's schooling. Only 26 percent of N.C. 4th-graders are proficient in reading and 21 percent are proficient in math.

RALEIGH — North Carolina school districts and local officials should pursue new ways to build, renovate, and operate public schools to avoid tax increases, say the authors of a new…