Liz Schlemmer
Liz Schlemmer is WUNC's Education Policy Reporter, a fellowship position supported by the A.J. Fletcher Foundation. She has an M.A. from the UNC Chapel Hill School of Media & Journalism and a B.A. in history and anthropology from Indiana University.
She has previously served as a temporary Morning Edition producer and intern at WUNC and as a news intern at St. Louis Public Radio. Liz is originally from Indiana, where she grew up with a large extended family of educators.
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The UNC System is conducting a study to quantify its return-on-investment for students and the state, to comply with a provision in last year’s state budget.
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Teaching college enrollment has plummeted. The NC Teaching Fellows program is fueling limited growthEnrollment at public teaching colleges in North Carolina dropped over the past decade. The NC Teaching Fellows loan-forgiveness program once attracted education majors to colleges across the state. After the General Assembly ended and then resurrected the program, some participating schools are now seeing a rebound.
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Students may be on summer break, but school principals are hard at work using these months to find a qualified, well-prepared teacher for every classroom come fall. Teacher turnover was higher than usual in some North Carolina districts this past year.
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School districts would have to submit their plans for virtual academies to the state board of education for approval, and could enroll no more than 15 percent of their total student population in a virtual program.
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The state budget law requires the UNC System staff to move from Chapel Hill to Raleigh by the end of this year at a cost of $15 million over four years. Lawmakers tucked the plan into the final budget bill without public discussion.
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Native American students recently circulated an online petition to “Save American Indian & Indigenous Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill.” After the petition received several thousand signatures, the university put a pause on the decision to end the major. Students and faculty say the threat to the program is a symptom of a larger problem.
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Teacher turnover. Burnout. Short-staffed schools. After two years in a pandemic, for many people, life is getting back to some semblance of normal. With the end of virtual classes and mask mandates, schools are also returning to their pre-pandemic routines — but teachers say schools are not back to normal.
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Judge hears arguments over court-ordered $1.7 billion for public schools as Leandro case heads to coThe North Carolina Supreme Court has asked Judge Michael Robinson to decide how the recent state budget affects a prior court ruling that ordered the state to set aside $1.7 billion for a plan to improve inequities in public schools.
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The UNC-Chapel Hill Faculty Council has approved a resolution to undertake a 20-year initiative to study and improve equitable pay for faculty. The resolution seeks to reduce wage gaps between male and female professors and across different races.
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The UNC System Board of Governors has voted to raise the cap on out-of-state students for the second year in a row at three of its historically black colleges and universities – North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina Central University and Elizabeth City State University. The policy could bring higher enrollment and revenue, plus more students with strong academic records.